


Once We Were Gods

by staranon



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Dragons, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minecraft, We'll see what happens - Freeform, more tags maybe?, ot5 to ot6 maybe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-11-22 21:38:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 58,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11388936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranon/pseuds/staranon
Summary: Jeremy just wants a reason to leave his crummy little town behind and set off on his own grand adventure like the ones he’s always read about in stories. After stealing a very precious grimoire to jump between worlds, he meets a zombie with an interesting story to tell and the opportunity of a life time.





	1. Tumbling Down Gracelessly is a Skill

**Author's Note:**

> Let's get this thing started. This is definitely going to be a longer project. I have a few chapters written out right now, so expect weekly updates. Things are happening. Things are in motion. Let's get started with it.

“Come on, come _on_.”

Jeremy looked up at the darkened stacks of books and waited patiently for the distant sound of fluttering wings. They had five minutes at best. _Maybe._ Until one of the Sisters on the night watch came by and saw what they were doing. Then they would _really_ have to hustle.

The great library of Nomina was one of the most expansive and inclusive out of any in the entire country. It was only beaten out by the library in Topay, a non-sovereign library that anyone could go to. What Jeremy would give to go there. The rumors of their grimoire collection always left him feeling envious of those who could take the great ships with their blindingly white and gold sails across the great ocean to the other side of the world. Expeditions like that were expensive, and for a witch like Jeremy, who really only excelled in one area of witchcraft, currency was hard to come by.

He was grateful for living so close to the library of Nomina. The vast knowledge here helped him excel in ways he couldn’t imagine if he were still living in his home village. Here he could explore his craft, teach himself something new, learn about the magic that coursed through his veins. But of course, there were limits to such knowledge.

The library had a forbidden section. Hundreds of books that could not be loaned out to the public without written consent and supervision from the Head Mother of the library. Those books could not leave the library, and the Sisters only allowed very few people in to see them. No matter how many times he petitioned, he could not gain access to them.

But he wasn’t deterred about the legal way of doing things. If one door closes, there’s _always_ an unlatched window.

Of course, sneaking into the library was no easy feat. It took weeks of planning and scouting to figure out what security measures the Sisters took to prevent thieves and people like Jeremy from sneaking in and stealing any precious artifacts. Alarm bells, banshee traps, trip-wire snares. These were only a few of what lay between Jeremy and a very rare grimoire.

Surrounding the library was a deep moat, separating it from the rest of the city with only two drawbridges to access it. It was to protect the library in case of an invasion. The moat was built out of a pre-existing river, diverted around the library until it met up with the other half and carried off far across the land. It was a rushing river, full of hidden rocks and troublesome rapids. The library was both well defended naturally and magically, so getting inside was no easy feat.

It started with crossing the moat, sliding down one bank and swimming through the frigid waters to rusted drain pipe, through which Jeremy shuffled his way through, using a potion of Sight to determine where hidden traps were. It was a fast acting potion, so he had to maneuver his way around the drain quickly until he came up in the basements, filled with large casks of pickled foods and ales. From there he used his only potion of Invisibility, running as fast as he dared up the levels until he reached the forbidden section of the library. Once there, his part in the heist was over. Not it was all up to Trevor.

Up above Jeremy’s head flew Trevor. In his talons he held on dearly to a large grimoire and dropped it into Jeremy’s waiting arms. The crow then landed on Jeremy’s shoulder, chest heaving from the exertion, pecking his beak lightly against Jeremy’s temple in agitation.

“I know, _I know_ ,” Jeremy said. “I know it was heavy, but we can leave now. Come on.” He briefly took a look at the grimoire, catching the title printed in gold lettering: _The Book of Travel Between Realms Via Portals._ Two solid clasps held the covers together, set in tiny combination locks that would take time to decipher before he could finally open it. But at least he had it. Finally.

“Let’s get out of here.” He stuffed the grimoire into his satchel and began to make his way back to the door. He set his hand on the doorknob, prepared to make his daring escape when something heavy growled behind him. Trevor cawed and buffeted his wings, talons clamping down tightly on Jeremy’s shoulder. Jeremy chanced a look over his shoulder.

In the dark, barely shown by the faint flames of the oil lamps on the walls was a pair of yellow glowing eyes and the ivory shimmer of fangs. The beast stepped out of the shadows, giving Jeremy a better look at the large black wolf currently growling at him, hackles raised, slobbering with its ears pinned back. A witch’s familiar. He could feel the touch of magic bleeding off of it.

The wolf crept forward. Jeremy was forced to retreat from the door. He held up his hands in placation, attempting to calm the familiar before it could warn its witch.

“Hey, buddy, hey. Let’s just talk about this for a moment. This is all just a big misunderstanding. We don’t need to involve anyone else in this situation. I think we can handle this by ourselves in a responsible manner. Don’t you?”

The response was a snarl.

“Okay. Nice talking to you. Good luck on the guarding.” Tipping the dog off, Jeremy turned and ran the other way.

Trevor cawed and spread his wings, taking off towards the other familiar, talons aimed for its eyes. With the familiars busy, Jeremy ran to the other side of the library. From his right, a witch entered through a pair of heavy wooden doors.

“Stop!” she shouted and drew out a wand.

Jeremy yelped and skidded to a stop. He turned and began to run the other way.

“Thief!”

He ran, skirting around and between high book shelves,  dodging flung hexes and spellwork. He took another turn and skidded to a stop. He was  trapped in a corner. There were  tables with podiums to study the ancient texts and large stain glass windows, covered in murals of ancient rulers and mythical themes. He looked out one window. Far below was the moat and the rushing waters within it.

Trevor cawed a warning, circling up above. The wolf familiar came careening around a corner and growled at Jeremy. Two witches soon appeared.

“You have nowhere to go,” one said, holding a wand high and outstretching her other hand for the grimoire in Jeremy’s satchel. “Return to us what you have stolen and you will not be taken by the Justices.”

Fat chance. He worked too hard to steal this text. He wasn’t going to lose it now. He backed up closer to the windows. Far down below was the moat and the rushing waters.

“Hand over the grimoire,” one of the witches said, extending her hand.

Jeremy took another step back and felt a force of pressure give way underneath his foot. Across the room hung an elaborate portrait. From it sprang the ghostly form of a banshee spell, taking on a hideous replica of the portrait, flying at Jeremy with alarming speed. While in the back of his mind he knew the banshee could not harm him, it startled him so badly that he tripped backwards and crashed through the winding, sailing out the window and far down to the frigid waters below.

* * *

Jeremy didn’t intend on ever stealing from the Sisters of the Sacred Waters. In fact, up until that point in his life, Jeremy had never stolen anything before. He had no need to.

He grew up in a small desert village where the population was less than fifty and everyone knew everyone. The nearest city was a two day trip to the south. His village was one that travelling merchants would pass through to top up their supplies before they went off to the city.

Jeremy worked at a potion stand, spending his days among boiling cauldrons and mediocre ingredients. It was a job at least. At least he was making some money, saving up so he could _get the fuck out of here_ and figure out what he wanted to do with his life.

His boss, well, was an interesting man. What was so interesting about him was that no one knew what it was that he did. His name was Gus and for as long as anyone could remember he tended the only potion stand in the village, taking on young witch apprentices and training them in the craft of potions. And by training, Jeremy meant being given a grimoire on basic potions and being told “Have at it!”

Everyday Jeremy came into work, Gus was out on the front porch of the potion stand, slouched in his usual chair with his hands folded over his stomach, wearing tinted spectacles with a long haired, black cat splayed by his feet. Here he would stay, moving a few times throughout the day, but otherwise remaining immobile. Day in day out, he would just sit there and stare at those passing by. Sometimes he would talk to Jeremy through the open window, making comments and general statements. He never expected a reply.

Since he was left own most of the time, Jeremy took some creative liberties in what he could create, staying up late to practice new recipes and spending his off days looking for fresher and rarer ingredients. He seemed to pick up potion making easily, falling into the work and getting lost for hours at all the possibilities and combinations he could think of. It was all really exciting, the fact that bringing together basic ingredients could create something _powerful_. There was something powerful about Jeremy, and being able to create _something_ with his hands was better than nothing.

When magical abilities begin to manifest around the age of twelve, Jeremy was sadly left out of the discovery of any elemental forms of magic or of those of the rarer forms of magic: psychic, necromancy, and electric. For a time he was thought to be just a human—nothing wrong with that, but Jeremy grew up in a witch majority village. He _wanted_ powers. He _wanted_ a familiar.

“There’s no shame in not having magic,” his father would say. “There are many orderlies that go on to do great things. They may not have magic, but they create in their own ways, relying on their wits and their skills to solve problems. They’ve created medicines, charted the stars. I’ve even heard their creating artificial light! See? There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everything will work out.”

Orderlies were those who had no magic. Who could not feel the vibrations of the earth beneath them, or the radiating power of the sun, moon, and stars at their zenith. They just went on about their lives like there wasn’t something tethering them to this world. They always looked up and outward, looking for something more like they were aware, on some level, that they were missing out on something. That was not the life Jeremy wanted. He wanted magic.

As it turned out, he did have magic. When taking rudimentary magic classes to determine what he excelled in, he excelled in potions. He caught onto the combinations with ease, feeling the potions becoming imbued with his power, his magic. They glowed. They burned. They sang for him, and it was exhilarating to behold. He found his calling at least, even if he wanted something more, something explosive.

Later in his life, he would come into contact with a Diviner, a witch who could read other witches and determine if they had any abilities. She held his hands, her milky eyes boring into his, unblinking for a solid minute until she closed them and breathed deeply.

“Latent electricity,” she said. “You have a spark within you, but it is hidden. Muddled. It may grow with time, patience, and perhaps you might need to seek out a tutor. But it is well and truly there.”

_Latent electricity._

Latency in any form of magic meant the witch could only access a portion of that magic. They could not control it, and it was susceptible to periods of high emotion. Whenever Jeremy was extremely angry, he found himself able to produce a charge, something akin to static electricity. It could produce a nasty spark against anyone who touched him, but he couldn’t harness it. He had no ability to.

So he resigned himself to Gus’s potion stand for the rest of his life, bored out of his skull, and yearning for something more.

He was leaning on the windowsill of the stand, where the customers could tell him what they wanted. He rested on his folded arms and looked over to Gus, who was still in the same position since Jeremy opened the stand this morning.

“I’m bored,” he said.

Gus said nothing.

“I’m bo- _ored._ ”

“Then go do something,” Gus replied.

“Like what? There is a literal tumbleweed blowing through the street right now. And aren’t you my boss?”

“Yeah? And?”

“Aren’t you supposed to tell me what to do?”

“I could, but then that would mean _I’m_ doing _my_ job.”

Jeremy waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t add on, he said, “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

Gus shrugged. “People need potions. You make the potions. Which leaves me to sit out here.”

“Yeah, but this is your potion stand.”

“Just because my name’s on it doesn’t mean I actually contribute to the manufacturing of said potions. And if you’re really this bored, you can always leave. It’s not like I care.”

That was really all the permission Jeremy needed to gather his things and leave the potion stand for a few hours. “I’m out,” he said as he walked past Gus.

“Mmhm.”

It took him an impressive five minutes to leave the town and head on down the dusty road to the dunes.

To be quite frank, he hated sand. It got everywhere. It made him feel worn down like the wood planks of the potion stand. It irritated his eyes. It made everything taste slightly gritty. And it was all he could see for miles around him. There was an oasis located not too far from his town that offered a refuge from the white hot sand that surrounded him.

It was hard being potion witch in a place where hardly anything grew. Due to the lack of ingredients, he was stuck to making the most benign of all potions. They included mostly potions of stamina, minor healing, and heat sickness prevention. They lived in a desert where passing merchants would be travelling for anywhere between two and five weeks to get to any major city. The basic ingredients found in Jeremy’s environment worked to make these potions in abundance. The parts of the various cactus plants could be used in many ways. The spines could be dried and crushed into a powder to be used in potions of healing. The flesh of the cactus could be stewed down and drained. The remaining liquid was good for heat sickness and exhaustion potions. And the liquid within the cactus itself did well for ones of stamina. The ratios of ingredients mixed with water affected the strength of the potions, so Jeremy was careful to maintain the ratios. Not only did Gus scrutinize the ratios to make a profit, too high of a magical dose within each potion could lead to a fatality. Stamina potions could lead to heart attacks. The heat exhaustion potions could easily reverse and drop the body temperature and freeze them from inside out, and so on. Ratios were important. Every good potion’s witch knew that.

Cacti were in abundance for an obvious reason. It was the fucking desert after all. But Jeremy wasn’t out here for the cacti. He could easily just walk into his backyard for that. No, he was here for a special well with special properties.

Or.

He hoped so.

This well was spoken of in a book he’d read. A very powerful witch died at the spot where the well would soon be. It was said that her familiar—in the story he read it was that of a large predatory bird—shed a tear for her before it followed her into the next life. As the tear fell into the sand, the ground became imbued with magical properties. When local inhabitants stopped by at the spot many years later, they found a spring and dug a well into the ground. The well had been said to never dry and that it would ever so slightly shimmer at the right angle for light refraction.

But then again this was just a story, one of many in a large book Jeremy read from as a child. Either way, the well was worth checking out and testing from. If there were magical properties in the water, then Jeremy was going to have a field day.

It took half a day to walk to. It was surrounded by nothing but cool, dark stones, an indicator of the water beneath his feet. There was no town built around it as with most deep wells. This was possibly due to the rocky terrain surrounding it, making it hard to build any houses upon it. Either way, it was in the middle of nowhere, and Jeremy couldn’t be happier.

He dumped his satchel next to the well and looked down in it. He couldn’t see the bottom. He picked up a small rock and dropped it. It finally made a splash several seconds later, meaning the water level was far down. He picked up the bucket resting alongside the stones that made the well and lowered it down gently through the pulley system.

As he was doing this, a crow decided to land on the hut built over the well. The bird was blue-black in colouring, fairly large in comparison to its non-familiar counterparts. It scrabbled down the hut, beat its wings, and landed on the stones as Jeremy continued to let the bucket drop. The crow jumped along the stones until it stood in front of Jeremy. It looked up at him, beady black eyes staring up at him unblinkingly. It cawed once. Jeremy frowned.

“Fuck off.” He attempted to swipe at the bird. The bird ducked and ruffled its feathers. “Get out of here. I’m working.” Once the rope went slack, Jeremy waited a moment for the bucket to fill before he started to pull on the rope. The crow decided it’d had enough and flew off out of sight. Behind him Jeremy heard, “Awww, didn’t you miss me, Jer?”

“Fuck off, Trevor. Two fucking weeks.” He twisted around to look at the now lean man dressed in a wispy feathered cloak lying a rock behind him. “You could’ve left a letter or something. It’s not like you _can’t_ write.”

“Oh, it’s not like I left you for that long.”

“Two weeks. Without a _single_ word. You do know how the whole witch-familiar thing works right? The whole bonding thing?”

“You’ve just got your feathers ruffled because I didn’t bring back anything exciting. But!” At this Trevor reached inside his cloak and pulled out a sealed jar.

Jeremy finished pulling up the full water bucket and set it on the edge. He turned around and walked up to Trevor, taking the jar in hand. Inside was an unknown plant to Jeremy. It looked like some sort of fungus, but the size and colour was all wrong.

“What is this?” he asked and opened the jar. He shook out one the specimens and held it in his hand. It was _like_ a fungus, but felt more rubber like. It wasn’t as fragile or as fibrous. It was a deep maroon red with a long stalk. The stalk of the plant was stiff, almost like a fairly large reed . It was wrinkled on top, meaning it wasn’t fresh, but it was new to him, and that’s all Jeremy cared about.

“Found it in a weird market place on the southern coast,” Trevor said, lying flat on his back with his arms crossed beneath his head. “You were getting bored, so I decided to go looking for a little fun for you.”

Jeremy held the apparent fungus up to his nose and sniffed. It smelled stale, but there was a hint of something familiar. Slightly smoky. Something like brimstone maybe? “What is this?”

“Guy said it was like Nether wart or something? I don’t really remember the details.”

“Nether wart?” Jeremy turned on Trevor and held up the jar. “Like from _the_ Nether?”

“I guess?”

“How? No one can get into the Nether without a portal. And portals are hard to build. Not to mention illegal.”

“Right? That’s why I thought it was the perfect gift for you!”

Jeremy looked at the Nether warts again. Already his mind was running with the potential possibilities of using Nether warts in his potions. First he’d have to write down all their physical attributes, take measurements. Then he would divide them into their parts. And then he would separate some for various methods of preparation: drying, stewing, and crushing into a fine powder. There was a fair amount of it, so he had some space to experiment and test different combinations before he ran out of anything.

“Sweet,” Jeremy said.

“I knew this would get you out of your funk,” Trevor said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your absence has been duly noted. Now help me fill these jars. I’ve got some cooking to do.”

* * *

The witch-familiar bond was an interesting and fickle thing. By the time a witch reached their age of magical maturity—around ten or eleven years of age—they would begin to notice that an animal would follow them around. The animals could vary in any specie, but they were usually black in colour: black cats, black dogs, black birds, and so forth. There were cases of black cows, black horses, and even black koi fish. What made these animals special was that they were familiars.

Familiars were shapeshifters. They held an animal form and a human one and could shift between these forms at any given moment. When a witch came of age, familiars would flock to a young witch they felt connected to. The familiar was like a physical manifestation of a witch’s magic. Familiars often guided and taught their witches in the area of magic they felt called to.

They could be used as messengers. They could fetch things for their witch in need. They were in tune with their witch’s every want and need.

While the familiar gave the witch much in their relationship, the witch provided a vital need for any familiar. Familiars were often thought of being spirits of old witches who died long ago. Why did they come back in these forms then? No one knew. There was speculation that they did it to move onto the next life or they weren’t yet ready to leave this one behind. Or they weren’t spirits of old witches and rather spirits of a different kind. Demons, daemons, sprites, and what have you. Whatever they were, witches gave familiars the ability to manifest on this plane of existence. Should the witch die, the familiar would go with them. So entangled were their fates that it was often they could feel when the other was in pain, or possibly even read each other’s thoughts. But such reports were rare, so really it was just like having a really fun type of pet.

In Jeremy’s case, he didn’t find Trevor to be at all that helpful.

Trevor was vivacious. He was extremely chatty when the mood struck him. He constantly had his own agenda, which he usually put above Jeremy’s. He often moulted in Jeremy’s bed. He liked teasing other familiars by pulling on their tails, sitting on their heads, teasing them as he sat on a rooftop and cawing at them in what Jeremy assumed to be taunts. He was an overall menace.

A perfect match for Jeremy really, but it felt more like he had a twin brother than a close friend. They drove each other insane at some points, tumbling around in the dirt in their young days until Trevor cheated and shifted. Their relationship was complicated, but Jeremy found it helpful. Even when his magical gift wasn’t showing, he _knew_ he was special because he had a small crow following him wherever he went.

Flash forward a few years and nothing had changed much between them. Trevor was still Trevor. Strongly independent, playful, but nevertheless he was dependable whenever Jeremy needed him. He always pulled through.

So when Trevor gave him the Nether warts, he knew it was Trevor’s way of getting him out of his funk. He knew Jeremy was suffering in Gus’s potion stand. He needed something to stimulate his mind, and this was the best way to do it: a new ingredient with new potion possibilities.

Jeremy waited until he was done work. He had the supposed magically imbued water from the well and a jar of Nether warts, which he kept a secret, because he didn’t know how someone would react to him having supposedly black market materials. Too many questions.

He didn’t have his own house. He rented as most people did in this town, so any experiments he conducted he did far away from the town and during the night. He had a cauldron set up in a rickety shack he built when he first moved here. There he would go and cook under the cover of night, or on one of his rare days off.

He had all the equipment he needed out there. Most of it was second hand and scratched. The flasks used to dilute and gather the gasses of certain ingredients and mix them in with the potions. The cauldron was of a decent size. He had his trusty mortar and pestle. And he was entirely alone. It was the perfect place to work on the Nether warts.

He filled the cauldron with some of the supposedly mystical water and started it to boil. He had other vials full of water as well for the flasks and further distillations. The cauldron was for boiling down some of the stalks of the Nether warts. Once he had them cleaned and chopped into a sizeable pieces, he threw them in and set a hood overtop of the cauldron to capture the vapours in yet another flask on his work station. Nothing went to waste. Not in Jeremy’s work space.

While he ran around feverishly, Trevor watched amusedly from where he was perched, sitting upon Jeremy’s work table. Of course he was pleased with himself. He gave Jeremy exactly what he needed: a new ingredient to test.

Jeremy didn’t know what he was looking for exactly. Ingredients for potions usually had specific qualities that predetermined the potions that they could make. Cacti were useful for potions relating to survival in desert climates, so for dehydration, heat sensitivity, and endurance. They all added up to strengthening a person to make it through the desert. Certain types of mushrooms were good for making poisons, if they were poisonous, or for necromancy since they grew out of rotting materials. But because he had no idea what Nether warts were like or much about the environment they grew out of, he was flying blind, which was how he conducted most of his experiments anyway. A little self-testing never hurt either.

“Do you know anything about the Nether?” Jeremy asked.

Trevor shrugged. “Only snippets, I think. And I don’t even know if they’re true.”

“What do you got for me?”

“Lots of fire, I think?”

“That would explain the brimstone smell.”

“Hey, tell me something. Have you tried eating one?”

Jeremy sputtered. “Wh-what are you talking about?”

“Oh, Mother Alive. Did you lick one?”

“Maybe.” Trevor rolled his eyes and Jeremy jumped to his own defense. “I needed to know what it was like!”

“By licking it? You could’ve died!”

“I obviously didn’t! So don’t make such a big deal about it!”

Trevor stuck his tongue out at him. Jeremy returned the sentiment.

It wouldn’t have been the first time Jeremy tested an ingredient on himself. He just needed to _know_ everything about what he was using. Self-testing wasn’t the solution to everything, considering how many times he nearly poisoned himself, but it was an easy way to see if he was on the right track, especially if he didn’t want to ask one of his friends to test a new potion.

When he had finally diffused the Nether warts into several different variations of the same potion. He kept it basic this time around, just water and different parts of the warts. He held up on of the extra ingredients. He didn’t want to accidentally kill himself here. Just some simple tests.

“Hey, Trev?” he asked.

“Yeah?”

“Are you feeling lucky?”

“No _oo_.”

“Oh, come on. You’re not going to help out your favourite pal?”

Trevor jumped off the table and shook his head. “No, no, no, no. I am not your little pin cushion.” He whirled his feather cloak around himself and transformed into a crow. He flew away in a flurry of loose feathers.

“Coward!” Jeremy shouted through cupped hands.

He turned to the vials set on his work table and thought about the best course of action to test his new potion. First he had to figure out what it actually did. If it protected against anything. If it enhanced anything. And since he didn’t feel like testing it on himself . . .

He picked up a fairly sizeable rock as he looked at the still flickering flames of his fire. He doused the rock in a half a bottle’s worth of the potion and tossed it in the fire. He cleaned up the remnants of his experiments as the rock continued to sit in the flames. After a sizeable amount of time had passed, he used an iron poker to roll the stone out of the flames. He bent down and quickly tapped the rock. Still cool. He wrapped his hand around it. It was like it didn’t even touch the fire.

He stood up and grabbed the half empty potion bottle. He doused his hand in it and plunged it into the flames. Nothing. He felt nothing. He didn’t feel anything until five minutes later, but even then it was a gentle warmth. He pulled his hand away and looked at the other vials.

Oh, he was going to have so much fun with this.

* * *

He kept the use of the Nether warts a secret. He had five vials of the potions he had made of them. He tested each one and determined that each had the same flame retardant properties but the length of the flame prevention depended on how the potion was made. So far the crushing of Nether warts seemed to be the winner. He made a note of that in his potions handbook, filled with failed experiments and shorthand notations all wrapped up in weather beaten leather. It was one of his most prized possessions. And he had every intent on filling it.

With his new found potion, he asked Trevor to keep an eye out for Nether warts at any black markets he visited.

“What’s your plan with these things anyway?” Trevor asked as he tossed one of the bottles up into the air.

Jeremy caught it and set it back down in the chest he kept hidden under his bed. “If I make them more potent, I could potentially go to volcanoes and get things from there! Like magma, volcanic flowers, special rocks I might find. And that could lead me to more potions!”

“Since when did we decide to go to volcanoes?”

“Like five minutes ago. It’s going to be great, Trevor.” He slapped his hand down on Trevor’s arm and gave him a good shake.

“Do you _know_ how hard it was to get that _one_ jar? People don’t just get into the Nether all willy nilly. I doubt I’ll find another one any time soon.”

Jeremy frowned and turned away. He needed those Nether warts. He had made a breakthrough in his lethargy and he was committed to continuing on and getting out of this crummy town. No more potions stand. No more grumpy customers. No more grumpy _Gus._

The issue with not having any Nether warts stemmed from the whole issue and ban on portals to any realms. Centuries ago there was a supposed group of powerful witches that used portals to travel to many realms: the Nether, the Aether, and the End. There they would gather materials and bring them back to conduct powerful spells. So powerful that they were in risk of ripping this plain of existence, the Terra, in two. The witches, the ones who jumped from portal to portal, realm to realm, also brought with them terrible monsters. Those witches were stopped. Either killed or locked in those realms to imprison them. Since then any grimoires and spells pertaining to opening portals had been restricted or burned to prevent anything like this from happening again. Whoever got those first Nether warts must’ve been feeling really brave or was just really stupid. Either way, Jeremy needed to get to the Nether. He felt like this was something he needed to do. For the first time in a long time, he knew where he was meant to go. He was meant to experiment. He was meant to create. He was meant to go where none should.

“I need you to do something for me,” Jeremy said.

Trevor narrowed his eyes. “Like?”

“Like going to the nearest grimoire keep and seeing if they have anything in the forbidden section?”

Trevor’s eyes widened once he knew where Jeremy was going. “No, nope. I am _not_ enabling you into doing something illegal.”

“It’s not illegal if you don’t get caught.”

“Which you will, because they don’t let people take books out of the forbidden sections. It’s forbidden for a reason.”

“Yeah, a dumb reason. It’s not like I’m going to let anything out of those portals. If you do a little blood magic with the thing, I bet you could make it into a one way system.”

“How long have you thought about these portals? It seems like you know more than you should.”

“Not long. It was just an idea I was entertaining.”

“Yeah, an illegal idea.”

“Since when have you ever followed the law.”

“Since it meant opening potentially dangerous portal to a place full of evil.”

Jeremy waved off his concern. “I swear to you that this will be the last illegal thing I _ever_ ask of you. I swear.”

Trevor pursed his lips and sighed. “Fine.” Jeremy clapped his hands together in victory. “But this is the  last time I steal something for you.”

“You’re the best!”

“Of course I am.”

* * *

He wasn’t a thief. At least, not in the way that affected anyone in the long run. Anything he took was replaceable. He would borrow things from friends and not give them back. He would smile and shrug sheepishly when they came back for it. He knew how to charm people, how to sway their ire into gentle frustration. He always paid his dues.

He didn’t know why exactly he decided to pull off this insane stunt, but he did it. He couldn’t just sit by and let the idea go that there were greater ingredients out there. That he could potentially build a portal and jump between realms. He couldn’t stay in this town any longer. Some part of him knew it wasn’t in his future to do so.

When he hit the water, he must’ve passed out from the shock of it. When he woke, it was to darkness and the smell of damp earth and rot. A dark figure loomed over him, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Oh!”

It was a zombie over him. _Right_ over him. Green tinged skin, rotting teeth, glassy eyes. All the signs of necromantic magic residue. Some necromancers left the evidence of their spells wandering around in the forests. It wasn’t . . . There were always thoughts of what zombies actually were. Some thought that due to a necromancer’s influence a piece of the zombie’s original soul would become trapped within the rotting corpse, giving it some semblance of life. There were other thoughts that the soul had fully departed the body and what was left was simply magical residue. Or perhaps the mancer had implanted some sort of artificial soul. Whatever it was, this zombie didn’t seem to be like any other zombie Jeremy had come across.

It seemed . . . coherent. Like it knew what it was doing, looming over Jeremy where he was laid sprawled out on the ground from where the raging river had taken him. He was shivering. Cold from the water, joints locked up from where he’d been laying here for so long.

The zombie seemed to be studying him intently, eyes narrowing and widening, scanning Jeremy’s prone body. “And who might you be?”

Huh. That was a first.

The zombie could speak.


	2. Dead Men Do Have Tales to Tell

Jeremy was too stunned to speak at first. He gaped, looking at the zombie who continued to study him intently. “I-I-I-I.” His tongue felt too thick to push out any words of meaning.

The zombie tugged at the strap of his satchel, still secured across his chest. He pulled at the bag and dug around inside, pulling out the stolen grimoire. He trailed his fingers, topped with cracking and black nails, across the gold lettering in the title.

“What is this?” the zombie asked.

He pulled away from Jeremy a bit to study the grimoire closer. He seemed to be frowning, attempting to read the grimoire and yet unable to do so.

Still too shocked and numb to properly form an answer, Jeremy’s reply was simply, “Uhhh.”

The zombie trailed his finger across the title and began to mumble to himself. “—feel it. Combinations, keys.” He stood up and left Jeremy lying flat on his back.

Jeremy closed his eyes and began to take stock of his situation. He was entirely damp, shivering and in need of getting dry and warm as fast as possible. He sat up and pulled up his knees to his chest. The river had seemed to deposit him in some sort of cave. Around him was all rock but there were gaps that showed the beginnings of a sunrise. Early then.

“Jer- _immy_!”

Before he knew it he was on his back again, with a fully transfigured Trevor sitting on his chest.

“I thought you died!”

“Nope,” Jeremy replied with some difficult. “Still very much alive.” He bucked Trevor off his chest until they could both sit up. “What happened?”

“Well, after you crashed through the window, the river carried you here. We’re in the middle of the woods. Like the _dark_ woods.”

“How far are we from the city?”

“Uh, half a day? The river carried you far.”

“Mm.” Jeremy closed his eyes and sat back on his hands. When he opened them again, he looked up at the cave ceiling. Now with more light he could see that the walls of the cave were straight and fairly flat. “What is this place?”

“Some sort of weird cave?” Trevor shrugged. “I was more worried about if you were alive or not. Also, what happened to the grimoire? I don’t want any of our illegal activities to have gone to waste.”

“Huh? Oh, zombie got it.”

“What?!”

Jeremy waved him off. “He walked off over there. We’ll get it back. Now fly out there. I want to see what this place is.”

“All righty.”

With a flash, Trevor was gone. Jeremy hadn’t flexed this particular magical muscle in a while, so it took some time to ground himself and get into the headspace that allowed him to ‘look’ through Trevor’s eyes. It was a particular gift that all witch-familiar pairs were granted, though seldom few could use it quite like Jeremy and Trevor could. It was like a telepathic link, something psychic witches were gifted with. Witches could essentially see through the eyes of their familiar, and vice versa. Other senses could be gained through continuous practice, but it was a hard skill to hone. Jeremy just happened to pick up on it quicker than anyone else because as a pair he and Trevor worked well together. They connected. They bonded well. They were like soulmates.

After a moment, Jeremy was able to see what Trevor was seeing. He had flown up high enough so Jeremy could see the landscape. Dense, dark woods. No sight of the forest floor except for where the river cut through the woods and the structure that Jeremy was within. When Trevor turned his eyes to the cave, Jeremy saw that it was no cave. It was a ruin.

The building was simply a large cut rectangle made of stone, but it towered over the ancient trees that surrounded it. In fact, parts of the walls seemed partially destroyed, like the tower had been taller still and had crumbled over centuries of neglect. Ivy had begun to creep up the sides of it, making it hard to discern what it once was, but Jeremy was definitely in an old fortress. The river had curved towards the fortress and a cut a path through its foundation, deposting Jeremy within.

When he came back to himself, he rummaged through his satchel to pull out a potion of the Hearth—one part coal to two parts boiling water. After he drank it, his body was immediately warmed from the inside out. It even managed to dry his clothing a bit. Feeling better, he stood up and gathered his satchel. Trevor returned and gripped tightly onto his shoulder.

“Let’s get that grimoire, buddy. Drinks are on me tonight.”

He began to walk into the fortress, which was a rather large building on itself. There was nothing but rubble left for him to see, so it wouldn’t be any use scavenging for anything useful here. Besides, judging from how old the ruin was, he bet that this place was picked clean years ago.

The zombie that had taken the grimoire hadn’t gotten far, as Jeremy predicted. He wasn’t all that worried about it. Zombies did have a tendency to pick up things they’d found and just carry them around. This zombie had settled himself at the far end of the ruins ner a large hole in the wall that was probably once an oven. There was a glowing torch on the wall, although it wasn’t a proper torch. It was glowing red.

As Jeremy got closer, he heard more mumbling. Trevor ruffled his feathers. “Easy, buddy. Zombies can’t do shit.”

As he got closer he began to make out what the zombie was saying. “Keys in the dark. The great violet glow will encompass all. Just have to find.”

The zombie was surrounded by a random assortment of objects; some of which were stashed away in crates. Others littered the ground, gathered in piles, creating the effect of a magpie’s nest. Pieces of rusted armour. A broken sword. A half rotted quiver of arrows. And books. Books were piled everywhere. It seemed like the most common item the zombie had surrounding him. He continued to trail his fingers over the gold letters.

“Um.” Jeremy cleared his throat. Just how was he supposed to get the grimoire back? “Hey, uh, could I get that back please?” He crouched a little and reached out for the grimoire.

The zombie hardly paid him any mind, continuing to mumble to himself. “Magic in this one. Bring them home again. Put it back together.”

“Yeah, I’m just gonna . . .” He reached from the grimoire and tried to pull it from the zombie. It was then that the zombie took notice of him.

“You,” he said. “You have the power.” He set his hand over one of the two clasps on the grimoire.

“Uh, I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I know.” He tapped his fingers against the cover of the grimoire. “I know what this is supposed to be. I _know._ It’s just a bit . . . lost. And you. You brought it to me. You can help me.”

Trevor made a confused sound.

“Yeah,” Jeremy said, drawing out the word. “I’m not sure where this is going? So.”

The zombie stood up with the grimoire in his hands. “What does this say?”

“Um. _The Book of Travel Between Realms Via Portals_?”

The zombie looked suddenly relieved. He even smiled. What type of zombie was this? “We need to get this open.” He turned around and went back to the weird nest he’d surrounded himself with.

Jeremy shared a look with Trevor. Trevor merely tilted his head. Seeing as he was meaning on cracking the clasps anyway, he might as well get started on it now. So long as the zombie didn’t try to eat him, he would be fine with this situation.

* * *

The clasps were a simple combination lock that merely took some trial and errors in deciphering which combination was the right one. It required six positions. The first clasp had to be set to one mark. Then the second. And then back and forth until both clasps popped open. It took about an hour until he realised there were some scratches on the clasp mechanisms themselves that suggested wear and tear and it didn’t take long from there to figure out the precise code needed to crack it open.

The pages were thick. Most grimoire manuals had the thick pages to protect the ink work and from anything slipping between the pages and running the integrity of the writing within. Here before him were diagrams and inscriptions of how to build honest to Mother portals. Nether portals. Aether portals. Something to a place called The End. It was a dream come true.

Trevor hopped down from Jeremy’s shoulder and tapped his way across the book.

“I know, buddy. I know.”

“You have it?”

Jeremy jerked back from the sudden appearance of the zombie. “Uh, yeah. I have it.”

“Good. Good. Follow me.” The zombie took up the red glowing torch from the wall and began to walk away. Jeremy shared a look with Trevor. Curiosity was what drove him forward.

He followed the zombie outside of the ruin and into the forest. The trees had grown in thick, gnarled from age with moss hanging in delicate webs from their branches. Underneath Jeremy’s feat in certain patches were paving stones for a road or an ornate foot path. There used to be a settlement here. He could see it now, pieces of rubble through the trees either from the crumbling tower or other structures. Where was he?

The glow from the red torch made the forest seem even worse. Anything could be in here. More zombies. Wolves. Giant man-eating cats. The dreaded creepers. Maybe even a mythical ender-man. Either way, Jeremy kept close to the zombie. In the back of his mind alarm bells started ringing, but for the moment he pushed forward.

The zombie turned off the path suddenly and stood next to a rather large tree. “Here somewhere,” he muttered, stomping his foot on the ground until it sounded hollow. He bent and pulled up on a cellar door. And down he went.

Trevor nipped at Jeremy’s ear. A warning. _Don’t go down there._

“If he hasn’t eaten me now, I doubt he ever will. Come on. Let’s go.”

The stairs were narrow and slippery. He kept one hand on the roughhewn wall as he descended further into the earth. “So where are we going?” he asked, hoping that this wasn’t a trap. Please. He’d had a long day and this was all very strange. He had enough of it so far.

Eventually the stairs ended, and they came upon an old mine. The walls had definitely been carved into, the walls full of pock marks from pick axes. The zombie continued to lead him until he was fairly certain they were in the middle of the cave. Jeremy heard what he was sure to be the large mandibles of a spider clicking off in the distance. He suddenly felt very claustrophobic.

“This,” the zombie said. He held his torch aloft and the dim red glow laid upon a broken structure made of black stone. And as Jeremy got closer, he saw that it was a fairly large rectangle, free standing. The only part missing was the top. Trevor made a sound and hopped on his shoulder. He dropped down onto the book and cawed, fluffing his wings before he fluttered up and sat on the structure. He cawed again.

Jeremy looked down at the book and opened it up. He flipped through the pages until he came across the Nether page. Trevor cawed and tapped his beak upon the structure. Jeremy looked down at the diagram. Before him was the incomplete structure of a portal. A Nether portal.

“You’re going to help me fix this,” the zombie said.

* * *

Nether portals worked like this. First, the structure had to be made out of obsidian. Built five units high and four units across. In order to activate it, it had to be struck by a simple piece of flint and steel, but the magic came from the carved runes into the obsidian blocks making up the portal. Runespeech was the oldest language in the world. None could speak it, but it was supposedly passed down from the ancient dragons to the first witches, the Great Mothers. Jeremy didn’t understand a single of the runes he saw in the book and remnants on the portal, but it was _new_ to him. This was just what he wanted, right?

“Okay, so.” He put his hand on his head and shut his eyes tightly. “You want me to fix this?”

“Yes,” the zombie said.

“And, um, why would I do this?” He opened his eyes again and looked to the zombie.

The zombie set his hand on the portal. He rubbed along the rough stone, looking at the empty frame. “Because there’s something I _need_.” The zombie paused. He seemed lost for a moment. “Need something on the other side.”

Okay, so he was entirely in over his head. He had no idea what was going on, but considering he had a head start on the portal he was willing to forget about all the potential issues that could arise from this situation.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I can do this. I think I’ll have to read up on the runes first. Then figure out how to get obsidian down here, carve it, and light it. So I’m going to take this—” he lifted the grimoire “—and head out back to town and read up on . . . _everything._ ”

“You’re leaving?” the zombie asked.

“Yeah, but I’ll be back. I just need some equipment.” _And to wrap my head around this shitty mess._

“Okay.”

“All right.”

* * *

He made his way out of the forest using a simple location spell and Trevor’s eyes in the sky. When he finally stumbled out of the forest in daze, he shook his head. _What an odd experience._ It took another two days until he was stumbling into town. He passed by the potion’s stand on the way back to his house. Gus was still there. In the same position he left him in.

“Where’ve you been?” Gus asked, slightly accusatory.

“Oh, off doing stuff. You know. Stuff.”

Gus simply nodded along. Jeremy nodded as well and pointed down the road. He continued on without another word. As soon as he was home, he collapsed on his bed and slept until the sun went down. When he woke up, it was to Trevor on the other side of the room. He was sitting on Jeremy’s desk chair, feet and all as he looked at the grimoire.

“Sleep well?” he asked.

“As well as you can expect after being totally out of your mind for two days.” Jeremy rolled onto his back and dug his fingers into his eyes. “What have you been up to recently?”

“Oh, you know. Familiar stuff.”

“Familiar stuff?”

“Uh huh.” Trevor drummed his fingers on the grimoire. “So, we need to talk about a lot of things. First off . . . _what the fuck_ did we just do?”

Jeremy looked up the ceiling. Right. Now was the time he had to confront what he’d seen and done over the past few days.

Stole from the Sisters of Sacred Water?

Check.

Opened the grimoire?

Check.

Found a portal and a fairly sentient zombie guide?

Check. But when did that become part of the plan again?

“Right. Okay. So. Where do we start?” He rolled onto his side and ran his hand over his hair.

“Um, maybe the part where the zombie decided he wanted to be friends with you? I mean, in _all_ of my years of being a familiar—specifically _your_ familiar since you get up to some pretty crazy shit—I’ve never met a zombie that coherent before. I mean, it could _talk._ It seemed like it had a memory and everything.”

The zombie did have those moments where he seemed to be remembering something. The way he looked off not in total absent-mindedness but more of nostalgia. He _knew_ about the portals. That was what also made this interesting. He had knowledge about the portals. Jeremy needed to know if had anything more to offer.

“What if he isn’t a zombie?” Jeremy suggested after some thought. “Like, I’ve heard stories of people testing out Infinity potions and basically if it’s brewed correctly, it _can_ work, like, theoretically. It basically just traps the conscience in the body, but there’s nothing to keep the body from aging and eventually rotting. He could be like that. Or maybe a former necromancer who’s spell backfired. And what do you think that whole fortress was anyway? I’ve never heard of any major city being built in that area. You’d think they’d at least mark down the ruins on a map at least. I mean, it’s _so_ close to the city.”

Trevor tilted his head and gave Jeremy a slightly condescending look. “What did you get us into?”

“How the fuck should I know? It was all random chance that the river washed me there. I say we don’t overthink this, get the portal working and just like that—” he clapped his hands together and gave Trevor one of his winning smiles “—and we’re in the Nether. Back in business.”

“Oh, Mother.” Trevor wearily ran his hand down his face. “What did you get us in to?”

“Trevor, when have I ever steered you wrong?” He was still smirking, entertained by possibilities of where this could take them.

“Do you want me to run down the list alphabetically or chronologically?”

Jeremy pulled out his pillow and threw it across the room at him.

* * *

He wasn’t easily swayed by Trevor’s trepidation. Trevor was a familiar. Familiars were more affected by residual magic than either witches or orderlies were—barring psychic witches because they were psychic after all. He was probably worked up over the ancient ruins they’d stumbled upon, picking up on something Jeremy couldn’t. He’d be out of his funk in a few days now that they were back in town. For the time being, Jeremy went to the modest (read: small) book shop in town and bought a book on runes.

What was interesting about rune magic was that many people thought there was no use in it any longer. No use in the written form as a means of using magic. Now it was all potions, the spoken form in the new language of Vashti, and wands. Tools of amplification. Runes were largely abandoned because people discovered easier forms of magic to understand. Runes were fickle things. A slight mark off the shape of the rune could lead to a complete disaster. It was a difficult form of magic to control.

As he read up on runes, Trevor decided to do his own research. Of course he didn’t tell Jeremy what he was up to. Just that he would be gone for a while and that he should wait before going back to the ruins and the weird not-zombie zombie. Jeremy agreed. In the meantime, he went back to work as per usual.

“You seem different,” Gus said as he entered the potion stand one morning. He was still in his favourite chair. Jeremy was beginning to doubt that he ever left it.

“Different? What do you mean?”

“Are you licking strange frogs again?”

“What? No! Of course not. I’ve just been doing some, uh, interesting potion work recently.”

“Yeah. Sure you are.”

Gus left it at that and Jeremy began his shift for the day.

He ended up staying in town for three days before Trevor came flying back.

“There’s something you need to see,” he said, leaning against the doorframe when Jeremy came home for the day.

“What’d you find?”

Trevor looked to the side. He looked grim. “In here,” he said, pulling Jeremy inside the room. He took him over to the desk where he’d laid a piece of rusted metal. It could fit inside his palm comfortably. The design was a five pointed star with a sword upper cutting the middle. Judging from the empty spaces in the design, Jeremy assumed it was a brand, something to press into leather armour or wooden crates to mark property.

“Where’d you find this?” he asked, sitting down at his desk and pulling out a notebook so he could sketch the design.

“I went back to the ruins,” Trevor said, taking a seat on the edge of Jeremy’s bed. “There’s a lot of random shit there that the zombie has, so I rummaged around and found that. Seemed important.”

“Do you know anything about the design?” He didn’t recognize it. It could’ve been just a simple design from a local farmer, but if Trevor willingly went back to the ruins to find this, then it must be important.

“Well,” Trevor said, reaching up to scratch at his head. “I think I know what it is. And I know you’re going to like it, but it’s not pretty.” From within his cloak, he retrieved a small book and tossed it to Jeremy. Jeremy looked at the title: _Tales from Land of Old_. It was a children’s book. Jeremy recognized it because he had a copy like this once before he left home to strike it out on his own.

He flipped through the book, paging through the content quickly until he came upon an image. An image of five men. The middle man, who sported a stylish mustache, held an oddly white sword, pointing it up at the sky. For added effects, the artist added the star configuration, creating the same symbol as the brand that sat on Jeremy’s desk. He looked to the title of the story: _The Parable of the Cursed Ones._ He read through it quickly. It was a story of how the drive for power ruined the lives of five men, how their thirst for more drove them mad. It was a learning story, as most children’s stories were. It was about the need for humility and the dangers of pride. The Cursed Ones were once great and powerful witches, doing things that no other witch would ever think of doing. Their pride was their downfall and their price was being transformed into the very monsters that they hunted for sport.

To be honest, it was a fairly gruesome child’s tale. But on his desk laid proof of the story.

“You think that place was their fortress?” Jeremy asked.

“I mean, there’s other stuff there as well. I just think we need to be thinking rationally. If the story is true, then you need to be careful. Dealing with whatever magic they left behind.” Trevor wasn’t smiling. He lost all his previous playful attitude. He was deadly serious about this.

“What did you sense over there?” Jeremy asked, jotting down some notes from the book.

“It was just . . . a lot, you know? A lot of anger. And energy. Like it had nowhere to go and it’s all just trapped.”

“What do you think of that zombie guy?”

“Well, I’m starting to think he’s no longer a zombie. It _seems_ like he is. Like he’s got the body for it. But then I was watching him and he was, like, trying to read? You know he’s got all those books. Well, he cracked one open and it seemed like he was trying to read. He was trying to make sense of the words, but he couldn’t. I think he remembers how, but he just _can’t_. And if he is, well, that’s not something a zombie ever tries to do.”

Jeremy nodded and continued to write. “We need to go back there. We need to figure this out.”

“Have you not heard a word I’m saying?” Trevor asked, standing now, face set in furious determination. “Going back is going to get you killed. I know you don’t fuck around with children’s stories. You’re always saying they have _some_ value. Well, take your own advice and see that this isn’t worth it. You’ve got the grimoire. You can make your own portal. You don’t need to go back there.”

Jeremy tapped his pencil against the desk in a staccato rhythm. There was that itch again. That driving itch that could make him a bit reckless. People always told him he was too curious for his own good: teachers, parents, friends, co-workers. He never knew when to quit, when to say no. Maybe Trevor was right. Maybe he should quit while he was ahead. He hadn’t yet been found by the Justices or the Sisters. He’d made it this far.

Right. He’d made it _this_ far on nothing but a stupid idea to steal from the Sisters of Sacred Water and improvise from there. He knew Trevor meant well, but this was something he had to do. It was a mystery that needed to be solved.

“I know you think I don’t,” he said. “And I appreciate the concern. But I have to see this through. There’s something _there._ I don’t know what it is, but it’s there and I need to see where this all leads me.”

Trevor looked down and to the side, but eventually he nodded. “Fine.” But then he raised his hand and pointed definitively at him. “But whatever comes out of this, it’s all on you, buddy.”

“Thanks, Trev. ’preciate your support.”

* * *

This time Jeremy left the town more prepared than before. He packed all the supplies he would need to live away from home for a week. The only thing he couldn’t take with him was any of his potion equipment. That would require the use of a wagon and for the time being, he was horseless. He passed by the potion stand early that morning. As per usual, Gus was there to see him off.

“Leaving again?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“Don’t know when you’ll be back?”

“That’s the plan.”

Gus sniffed and said nothing else. Just continued to stare off into the distance. Jeremy started off. When he looked back, he saw Gus’s familiar staring off at him. It followed him to the city limits before sitting down on the dusty path.

He pressed on.

With Trevor’s help, he was able to get back to the ruins. There was no discernable path leading into the woods. It seemed like no one wanted to come into it. He didn’t blame them. It was probably monster infested. Which was why Jeremy came prepared with a potion of Concealment. It made him blend into his surroundings without making him invisible. It just made him hard to sense, like he was constantly in someone’s blind spot. In his hand he held a potion of Light. It was easier to use than a torch, easier to maintain. All he had to do was add some sunflower petals to water boiled under the noon day sun for a week, shake it, and voila! Light in a bottle.

He entered the ruined fortress and crossed over to where the zombie sat, huddled with his many books. The zombie looked up when he came close. “You came back,” he said.

“Yeah. Sorry it took so long.” He held up the grimoire. “Brought the book. I figure we could start working on the portal.”

The side of the zombie’s mouth twitched, reminiscent of a smile. “What do you need?”

“What do you know about obsidian?”


	3. Putting the Pieces Together But Missing the Big Picture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meant to have this up yesterday but went to a movie after work instead!
> 
> Enjoy!

The obsidian would be the hard part of rebuilding the portal. Obsidian, Jeremy would come to learn, was one of the hardest materials on the planet. It was formed when lave met water, the forces combining until nothing was left but coarse black rock. The only way it could be mined was with a diamond pickaxe. _Diamond._ Where was Jeremy going to find that? Not only were diamonds extremely hard to find, crafting a diamond anything would also be difficult to manage. It was technology orderlies had discovered. They were expert forgers on their own without any magic. Witches didn’t see any use in orderlie technology, not when they had magic. It seemed like he’d have to reach out. Or . . .

He could just make it himself. It was just equal parts water and lava, right? How hard could that be?

“You can’t just cart lava around, Jeremy,” Trevor said. “It’s impossible.”

“I wasn’t thinking about carting it around. That’s stupid. I was just thinking of creating like a funnel and channeling a lava deposit down to the portal where I will have conveniently constructed a water bed to finish off the frame.” He grinned at Trevor, waiting for some sort of praise for his plan. Trevor merely crossed his arms and shook his head slowly. “What? I have _great_ ideas. Come on. I need to throw down a location spell.”

Trevor looked to the zombie, as if that would help, and the zombie simply shrugged. “We used to do the same thing.”

“Who?” Jeremy asked.

“The . . .” The zombie paused, eyes going distant once more. “Others. Built portals all the time. Went everywhere.” He began walking way, off into the woods.

He had these moments where he would reminisce and go off into the woods. Jeremy never followed him. He felt the zombie deserved some privacy after all. He was clearly dealing with some unresolved issues, so Jeremy let him have his alone time. He was here to just build a portal after all.

But he couldn’t help but look at the zombie from time to time and try to piece together who this man really was. He had a dark beard. There were flecks of gray in it and his hair, either from age or the zombification process. There were dark circles under his eyes. He hands were heavily scarred and sported dark marks. Jeremy didn’t look close enough to see if they were tattoos or not. That might’ve given him some clue as to who this man had been before he became who he was. But his clothing was more of a giveaway than any mark.

He seemed to be wearing old armour. Chest plate, greaves, and vambraces. It was made of leather, a fine make despite its age. It was heavily worn, soft and fraying. He thought there was some design on the chest plate, right in the center, but it seemed to have been cut out at some point. All that remained was a ragged circle were _something_ used to be.

And there was another matter. His books. He had rare copies of almost everything on magic, on potions and elixirs, enhancements, spells. He even had a Runespeech book that was much more helpful than the one Jeremy had.

“Can I ask you something?” Jeremy said as he scribbled down the runes he would need to open the portal in his notebook.

“Mmhm,” came the affirmative reply.

“Why books? I mean, this place looks like it was picked clean years ago, but you still got all these books here. And they’re _precious_ books. I know a lot of people who would want to get their hands on these. So, why hang onto the books?”

The zombie sat on a crate with a book open on his lap. “They have knowledge. Power in them,” he said with a firm nod. “But I lost the words a long time ago. And without the words, I can’t get _them_ back.”

“And who are they?”

The zombie’s eyes scanned the book in front of him. “Friends. Lovers. Enemies.” He frowned. “It’s hard to remember what they were once. I have it in my mind what they were, but it’s all becoming jumbled. All the memories merging into one.”

Elusive as always. It was hard to make the zombie out sometimes. He had so much knowledge and yet everything he said was like a puzzle. There were times when Jeremy forgot he was a zombie, but then he would do something zombie-like, like eating a snail from the ground or acting as if he didn’t realize Jeremy was standing in front of him trying to get his attention.

“Also,” Jeremy said. “Seeing as we are working together, I feel like we should be on a first name basis. I’m Jeremy.” He thrust out his hand. “The annoying bird is Trevor.”

The zombie studied Jeremy’s outstretched hand for a moment before offering his hand. They shook in greeting. “Call me . . . Geoff.” He looked off to the side again. “Yeah. That sounds right.”

Jeremy nodded and withdrew he hand. He curled his fingers inward. “All right.”

The zombie’s hand was warm.

Odd. How very odd.

* * *

During the nights he was in the ruins, Jeremy slept on a bed roll propped up on crates so he wouldn’t have to feel the damp seep into his clothing from the ground. He had a Light potion strapped to a stick so he could read over his notes for the day. The zombie—or should he say Geoff—would spend the evening near his own belongings, muttering to himself, paging through books illuminated by that red stone torch.

It was such an odd thing that torch. Jeremy had never personally dealt with red stone before. Red stone previously was used as a source of power, but since orderlies had figured out how to trapped the properties of lightning in strands of cable and thin glass bulbs, red stone as a power source had grown out of fashion. It was also very difficult to obtain, forming deep below the surface. It was too costly to go after it, so red stone was largely abandoned. But here Geoff had a piece lighting his home, casting himself in an unearthly red hue. He didn’t understand why he was using that to light his path. He could use a regular torch or something else. Red stone was just difficult to use in general. So why did a zombie have a piece?

There was so much he didn’t know about this place yet. He took Trevor’s advice and decided to page through the children’s book he’d been given. He went to _The Parable of the Cursed Ones_ and began to read through it.

_A long time ago there were once five men, great witches of their time. They went by many names, but most knew them as the Warrior, the Jester, the Builder, the Scientist, and the God. They did as they pleased, doing things only one could dream about. But with all their power and skill, they fell especially susceptible to their own pride and faith in their abilities to do no wrong. . . ._

* * *

With a simple location spell, Jeremy was able to determine where a lava deposit was in order to direct it down to the portal. He had the water trough set up at the portal, all ready to go. It would just take a long ass time to get the lava _to_ the portal. Jeremy expected the mining to take at least week. He had all the pickaxes he would need and some Strength potions as well as a stash of Endurance potions. Geoff said he would help out. He went on about how he and his friends-lovers-enemies would do the same thing.

“It’s time intensive, but it was actually easier than looking for obsidian and mining it out,” he said.

“Did you use portals often?” Jeremy asked, because this zombie-man was still a mystery man. No one used portals, not in over a thousand years.

“Uh, yeah. It was . . . fun. Going off, doing stupid shit, seeing cool stuff. It was just a fun way to travel. Hard part was coming back, though.”

“Oh, yeah? Why?”

“Well, the return journey can create another portal on this planes, so you might not end up in the same place you entered.”

“All right.” Jeremy pulled out his notebook and jotted down some notes. “Is there anything you can do to prevent that?”

“You could tether it. Make it so you don’t come out at, like, the top of a mountain or something.”

Jeremy nodded along. “Good to know.” He wrote some more notes and stuffed the notebook away. “Anything else I should know?”

“Yeah. Don’t get burnt.”

* * *

_The Warrior was a tireless hunter. He laughed at the end of each battle, pointing his enchanted sword at any who was brave enough to face him in his arena. He had the strength of ten bears and the temperament of them as well. His roars could shake mountains, but no battle was ever enough for him. And for that he decided to call upon a dark monster from the realm of the Nether. The dreaded blaze he called forth terrorized many, but to the Warrior he was simply a challenge. He laughed as many towns burnt around him, but he cared not. All he cared for was the challenge. The fight._

* * *

As predicted, it took a week to channel the lava to the portal and the waiting water trough. The lava rivers all came from the same source: the giant volcano to the south west of their position. Mount Ashford. It had roots all over the place, supplying the area with a steady stream of coal and whatever else a volcano creates. Diamonds, probably. When the tunnel-funnel system was ready, Jeremy hammered out the last bit of stone still blocking the lava and followed its slow descent through the narrow caves and tunnels back to where the funnel had been painstakingly carved out. It dripped down into the water and as soon as the flow increased, the hissing and steam became much more prominent.

Jeremy finally decided to sit back and take a breather. He’d been working his ass off for a week and half to get this far, and now he was _almost_ finished step one of the portal. Step two was carving the runes, and for that he would need something diamond.

It took two days for the obsidian to fully form and cool enough for Jeremy to feel safe enough to remove the trough. When the planks were gone, he was left standing with the completed frame of a portal. There was nothing much to it really, but that fact that it was a _portal_ made him exceedingly giddy. He traced his fingers along the runes already carved in. He understood what they were and what they meant. All he had to do was figure out which ones he need to add. The grimoire had the answers, but he was afraid of carving the wrong rune into it. If that happened, he would have to start all over and build a new obsidian frame. He couldn’t afford that.

“Looks good,” Geoff said. “What’s next?”

“Rune carving. I need to add four runes. Two on either side of the structure. I know what ones they are, I just need like a diamond hammer and chisel to do that.”

“Diamond?”

“Yeah.”

“I think I can help you with that.”

Geoff began to walk away, heading back to the stairs. Jeremy followed him. They ascended into the forest. A bird cawed from above. Jeremy saw that it was Trevor. He didn’t like going down to the portal, so he stayed out of it. Trevor swooped down and landed on his shoulder.

“Hey, buddy. What have you been up to?”

Trevor ruffled his feathers, puffing out his chest and remained quiet. Maybe he was still feeling uneasy about being in this place. Jeremy admired him for staying this long. He could go off if he wanted to. Spend this time somewhere else, somewhere he felt safe. But he was here for Jeremy because he knew this was important to Jeremy. Next time Jeremy had some money to spend, he’d have to buy him something nice as a thank you.

Geoff took him back to the fortress. On the opposite end—from where they sleep and Geoff’s books remain—was a trap door. Geoff yanked it open and led Jeremy into yet _another_ hole in the ground. Although, this one was nicer than the other. The walls were smooth, made of a light-gray stone, purposefully built with shelves as a sort of old storage space. Now lichens grew on the walls, spotting them over in spots of pale green, black in some cases if they’d died out. There were old chests here, looted and now rotting. But Geoff seemed confident that there was something yet of value here. He walked further into the back.

“What is this place?” Jeremy asked.

“Old storage,” Geoff said, the red stone torch lighting his way. “Used to keep a lot in here. Armour. Materials. Weapons. Damn thieves took most of it, though.” He took Jeremy further back into the room. Trevor buffeted his wings, feathers dragging against Jeremy’s neck.

When they got to the back of the room, the red stone torch illuminated a giant stone figure. The sight of which startled Jeremy. He flinched back. “Whoa!”

In front of him was an approximately eight foot tall statue. It was styled like a man, full beard meticulously carved into the stone. His eyes were closed, mouth set in a line like he was merely sleeping. He had large hands, set lax against his sides. In the middle of his chest was a panel that could be slipped to the side as if to expose something within. As Jeremy cautiously approached the statue, he saw that it was not made of stone but metal. Iron to be exact. He set his hands on the statue. “What is this?” he asked. “It looks like a—”

“An iron golem?” Geoff said.

“Yeah!”

“That’s because he is.”

“That means . . .” Jeremy looked to the red stone torch in his hands. He knew a little about iron golems, the ancient defenders of orderlies when a civil war between the Order of the Pink Moon and the Society Necromantics began to affect the livelihoods of the orderlies. Withered crops. Dry spells. Decreased fertility rates. The golems were meant to protect orderlies from witch business. They were a gift from one of the Great Mothers. She took iron for their bodies and red stone for their hearts and made a fleet of protectors meant to guard those who had no magic against magical attacks. There weren’t that many of golems left in the world. Most witches by now saw that orderlies had learned how to defend themselves from magical attacks. Usually they weren’t so life-like, but this one here, Jeremy could feel, was special.

“He’s a golem,” Geoff said.

“Who’s he?”

“Jack. That’s Jack.”

“Is that red stone torch supposed to be his heart or something?”

“Um.” Geoff looked to the torch. He delicately swiped one finger down upon it. “Yeah.”

“Sweet. Do you think you could, you know, turn him on?” He’d always wanted to see an iron golem in action.

“Um.” Geoff looked down and away. He wrapped his hand firmly around the torch. The light was significantly dimmed. “Maybe later.” He briefly looked up at the golem before turning away and leading Jeremy a little ways away to a chest sunk deep into the wall. “Here we are. This is the one thing the thieves couldn’t get.” There was one panel in the wall that was smooth obsidian. From underneath his armour he produced a long key. He inserted the key into the panel and pulled it open. He pulled out some tools, dusty with age and disuse. He tossed Jeremy a bulging bag. He caught it and opened it. It was a bag full of glistening diamonds, their tiny forms winking up at Jeremy.

“Do you know how to forge?” Geoff asked.

“No, but I know someone who does.”

* * *

_The Jester could make any laugh. He was a trickster, stealing not only precious jewels but the hearts of many as well. He was a pleasing fellow, providing entertainment for the children of each village. It was said he could charm anything. So sure was he in his own abilities to sway people to do his bidding that he was goaded into charming a tempting siren. The siren was cause for many heartache in a coastal town. The people thought that if the Jester could sway her away from her perch, then they would be safe. But the Jester did not seduce the siren as many thought. Instead, they became a league of their own, tempting many more to sacrifice their lives. All the while they sat upon the siren’s stone perch and laughed as many sailors went to their doom._

* * *

In a village nearby Jeremy’s was a forger. His name was Matt. He had long hair and a beard and glasses like Gus. He wasn’t the most formidable of forgers. Not like the ones with bulging muscles covered in the sweat of their toils. Despite his lean physique, he had the most delicate touch out of all forgers that Jeremy knew, and it was him that he went to for a special order.

“Matt, I need a special item.” Jeremy set down his bag and pulled out a piece of paper of the designs of the tools he’d need.

“Yeah? And what is that?” Matt adjusted his glasses and looked down at the piece of paper set on his counter. “A hammer and chisel? Dude, you can get these for, like, two coppers at the store across the street. Don’t waste my time with this shit.”

“First, look in the bag.”

Matt frowned but did as he was told. His eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline. “Are you serious right now?”

“Mmhm,” Jeremy said with a smirk.

“Are you running in a gang? Should I be concerned for you right now?”

“No. And can you put a rush on this? I have places to be.”

“Fine. But it’s going to cost you more.”

“Fine. How about whatever’s left in the bag after you’re done, we split it and go our separate ways?”

“You strike a hard bargain, Dooley.” They clapped hands together.

“Drinks are on my tonight, my friend.”

* * *

_The Builder was like that of a gentle giant. He was known to create and build great masterpieces, but it was never enough for him. He continued to build and build. He left his masterpieces all across the land for all to see and enjoy. He took great pride in his work. And then one day he began on his final masterpiece, a great tower that people from all across the land would be able to see. It was to become a great city center, one that the whole world would know of. And the tower was meant to dominate the sky, challenging the great dragons yet still alive, but the great dragons were also prideful, and they did not take this invasion of their realm too kindly._

* * *

“So what are you up to these days anyway?” Matt asked.

They were in some fairly well kept tavern for drinks and food after Matt finished for the night. As promised, Jeremy paid for both their meals.

“Are you still at that one potion stand?”

Jeremy set down his tankard and nodded. “Kind of part time at the moment. I’m doing my own thing at the moment. Kind of like a side project, I guess. You?”

“Still forging away. I’m trying to earn enough to get on a ship and go over to Bistin.”

Bistin, as far as Jeremy was aware, was an orderlie majority city.

“That’s a far hike from here. What’s over there?” Jeremy asked.

“Cool shit. I’ve been hearing a lot about the stuff they’re trying to do over there, and I figured it seemed like it was up my alley. Like there’s this once project they’re working on right now and it’s a coal powered train. This _giant_ hunk of metal going down the tracks crossing _thousands_  of miles at time. It’s crazy what they’re doing there, and I want to see it.”

Jeremy nodded along in support. He could see why Matt would be attracted to a city like Bistin. He was an orderlie in a land full of witches. Orderlie innovations were something to behold, and a mind like Matt had would need all the stimulation it could get to keep itself busy. Witches didn’t need forgers all that often, not when they could create the item themselves. Forgers would have a better chance at succeeding with an orderlie population nearby.

“So what are you doing anyway?” Matt asked, changing the conversation to focus on Jeremy. “What’s so special that you need a rush order on a diamond hammer and chisel?”

Jeremy smiled down into his tankard and swiped up the remaining gravy on his plate with a piece of bread. “Okay, but you have to keep this quiet. I’m only telling you this now, because I’m half in the bag right now.” He leaned over and whispered in Matt’s ear about the portal and—

“Seriously?” Matt said, mouth agape.

Jeremy raised his tankard to hide his smirk. “Shhh,” he said. “You can’t tell anyone.”

Matt lowered his voice. “Isn’t that, like— _illegal?”_

Jeremy nodded and took another sip of ale. “It’s going to be _huge,_ Matt. My crowning achievement.”

“If I didn’t have any sense of self-preservation, I would totally join you. But unfortunately, I am called for other things.”

“If you’re still here after I come out, I’ll bring you a souvenir.”

“You better, considering I’m the one who’s giving you the equivalent of a damn key to the thing.”

* * *

_The Scientist was like a double sided coin. On one side, he was a kind and caring man. His keen mind benefited all who met him. He was an innovator, taking the red stone deep from the earth and creating marvels. He is said to be the father of fireworks, dazzling all with what he created in his lab. But on the other side of this very deadly coin was the side that not many wished to meet. There was evil created in that lab, monstrous things with a thirst for blood and a taste for flesh. The Scientist’s laugh was cruel when his creations terrorized the land. It was all just a game to him._

* * *

It took Matt two days to create the special order. The trouble with diamonds was that they were fucking _hard_ as fuck materials to work with. In order to make the hammer and chisel, Matt had to grind down the diamonds into a fine powder. With the powder he would then press it into molds for the hammer head and chisel point. He would heat it, finish it, and fix it to the handles, and voila! A custom made diamond hammer and chisel.

“And there you are, sir. One custom made hammer and chisel.” Matt slid him the box across the counter.

“Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well, if it all goes to shit, don’t come barking at my door.”

“That I can do.”

And he was back on the road.

Matt had always been a good friend to Jeremy. They grew up together, were each other’s best friends all the way through school. Matt was there for Jeremy when he was frustrated with his magical abilities. Jeremy was there for Matt when he didn’t know what he wanted to do after schooling finished. They always helped each other in the end.

With the hammer and chisel, Jeremy returned to the fortress. He set up a lift so he could sit and swing freely from the top of the portal and be able to carve in the runes. He had sketched out the designs of the runes in full size and posted them next to the spots where they would be going, and from there he began chiselling.

Geoff hovered over him, walking around the portal in a slow circle. He remained quiet as Jeremy set forth on the careful work of carving the runes. It was slow going. He didn’t want to screw anything up. The hammer and chisel made it easy to carve into the obsidian, like carving into wood really, but he was careful, continuously checking his work to make sure he was following the right design. When it came to the last rune, he found himself sweating a lot more. This was it, just a few more taps of the hammer and he would be done. He traced his fingers over the grooves, the fine curving lines that he had made. There was power in this language still. He could feel it. Something ancient that prickled his fingertips with the stored energy in these carvings.

When he was finished, he dismantled everything and cleared away the space around the portal, making it clear and mess free. Really, he hadn’t done much in the grand scheme of things. Most of the portal and runes was already there. He just added a few bits, but considering he was working mostly on his own with a little help from a wayward zombie-man, he was pretty proud with what he had accomplished.

It was little over a month since he had stolen from the Sisters. He continuously looked over the grimoire, taking it all in. The only thing it didn’t have was information about the Nether itself. He knew fire was involved, so he could prepare by making all the heat prevention potions he could possibly think of. But other than that, he was drawing a blank.

Thankfully, he had Geoff. Here’s hoping his memory still worked in some regards.

He was planning on heading back to the village for one more stop before jumping through a portal to who knew where. But for the night, he was going to take it easy.

The moon was high that night and full, shining through the gaps of the old fortress walls. His Light potion had faded, but Geoff’s red stone torch filled the area with a crimson glow, less terrifying now than it used to be.

“So why did you want me to fix the portal?” he asked, hoping he wasn’t being _too_ invasive (not fishing for any cryptic information, nope). “What’s in it for you?”

“I lost something there.” Jeremy twisted on his bed to look at him. Geoff sat huddled surrounded by his stuff as usual. He had something in his hands, not a book this time but what appeared to be some sort of medallion. He stretched up on the bed to get a better look and caught a quick glimpse of a five pointed star. He lay back down again.

“Something important,” Geoff went on to say. “It’s funny, you know? I’ve forgotten so much, but the big stuff, the important stuff, it’s all still there. Haunting me, I guess.”

“What’d you forget?”

Geoff didn’t respond. Jeremy figured he was in one of his moods and forgot that Jeremy existed for a moment. He turned the medallion in his fingers over and over and over again.

“What’s in it for you?” Geoff asked as Jeremy began to nod off.

“Adventure,” he replied, blinking slowly. “Something new. I just want to get out and see something, do something with my life. I feel like this is something I need to do.”

“Mm. Well, it’ll be something.”

“Yeah, something . . .”

He fell asleep.

* * *

_Lastly was the God, the leader of this band of rabble rousers. He set them forth to complete impossible tasks. He created games for them. The world was their playground, and every day they awoke to a new challenge and remade parts of the world in their own fashion. And he watched from his throne on high, smiling down at the destruction his men had created. This was his own doing. He watched and did nothing as the world came to an end._

* * *

At home, nothing had changed much—as usual. Jeremy stocked up on food and supplies. He was just about to leave his house when he was stopped by Gus. The sight shocked him. He stumbled back.

“Gus!” he said, and blinked in surprise. “You’re here.” He frowned. “And not sitting on your chair at the potion stand. What’s up?”

Gus fixed him with an all-knowing like. The kind that said I-know-what-you’re-up-to-but-I’m-not-going-to-out-you-so-you-can-save-face. “Where have you been?”

“Out,” he said, slipping the strap of his bag over his shoulder. “You know, I’m looking into a new job perspective.”

Gus frowned. Between his legs, his familiar wandered and meowed up at Jeremy. “You better not be doing anything stupid.”

“I’m not trust me.”

“That includes anything illegal—”

“Nope.”

“—anything life threatening—”

“I haven’t lost a finger yet.”

“—or anything to endanger the lives of others. Holy Mother, when did I become your pseudo parent?” Gus threw up his arms and walked off.

“Nice talking to you!” Jeremy shouted from the door.

“Why do I even bother?” Gus shouted. His familiar trotted after him. “He’s just going to fuck shit up anyways.”

Jeremy huffed a laugh and watched him walk away. What an odd man he was. Jeremy could never really peg him down. At times it seemed like he cared for Jeremy in a weird sort of parental way, but he was also aloof as hell.

Whatever.

For now, it wasn’t Jeremy’s priority to figure out his boss. It was time he got back to the (wait for it) _portal!_

* * *

_The dragons had been angered. The Five thought of themselves as gods, high on their own sense of power and entitlement. They had pushed the boundaries of their magic, daring to go where no witch ever would. They were insatiable. And so it was that they had to come to an end. Their drive for power had scarred the land too much. But it would all come to an end when they dared to steal the Obelisk, that which belonged to the mightiest of dragons, Crolden the Gold. And his rage was greater._

_Fields of wheat were burned. Rivers dried in the heat of his fury. Many died._

_The damage was so great that the Great Mothers stepped in to put an end to the suffering and misery. They defeated the Five and put an end to the madness that had consumed the world for many years. Balance was restored._

* * *

He was standing now before the portal with a flint and steel in his hands. Geoff was standing beside him. His red stone torch was nowhere to be found. Behind Jeremy stood Trevor.

“Whatever happens,” he said, “just know that I was never fully in support of your endeavours.”

“Heartwarming as always, Trev. Here goes nothing.” He struck the flint and steel against the portal. At first nothing happened, and for a moment Jeremy was ready to run back to Geoff’s obsidian vault to get the grimoire and see if he had missed anything, but then all of the sudden—

_Foom._

A purple haze filled the obsidian frame. It was slightly transparent and _glistening._

It was the most beautiful thing Jeremy had ever seen. He took a deep breath.

“Holy shit,” he said. “That’s a fucking portal.”

“That,” Geoff said. “Is a fucking portal.” He stepped up on the portal frame and went through the purple haze.

Trevor set his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder and nodded. “You ready, buddy?”

“Sure am, buddy. Let’s do this.”

Jeremy took in a deep breath and stepped up. His ears popped as he went through and he was met with a wall of dry air and undeniable heat.

_The Nether._

* * *

_For their crimes and their pride, the Five were cursed. They were stripped of their powers and contorted into the very monsters they had created, set loose upon the world. And for all time they would be known as the Cursed Ones, the monsters in the dark that had ruined the world. For their pride and arrogance, they paid in full._

_The Warrior._

_The Jester._

_The Builder._

_The Scientist._

_The God._

_No more. May their names be forgotten. They were nothing more than monsters, and monsters they shall be. For now and forever more._


	4. Lying By Omission is Still a Fucking Lie

Heat heat heat.

That was Jeremy knew for a moment. He wasn’t prepared for the intensity of the Nether. It took his breath away, quite literally. He fumbled, in his satchel for a one of his Heat potions from the first time he’d encountered Nether warts. He guzzled it down and immediately he felt better. He had four left.

Now that he wasn’t dying of the heat, he was suddenly struck by the feeling of immense _loss._ He looked around the portal from which he came through and saw that Trevor wasn’t here. He wasn’t here at all, and the worst part of all was that he couldn’t _feel_ Trevor. The bond he had with his familiar was drawing a blank at the other end.

“Shit,” he muttered. “Shit, shit, shit, fuck!” He scrambled back towards the portal, preparing to fling himself back in and assure himself that Trevor was okay, that he was still fine, but before he could, Geoff stepped in and wrapped an arm around Jeremy’s shoulders.

“Take it easy. Take it easy,” he crooned.

“I need to get back to him. I need—”

“Your familiar is fine.”

Jeremy whirled to face him. “How do you know?”

“Because I’ve done this before,” Geoff explained, taking the time to say what he meant to calm Jeremy down. “Familiars are only essences that take a form. We are essences within a form. Trevor can’t form here because there’s nothing for his essence to tether itself to, not like he can back home.”

“So he’s . . .”

“He’s still on the other side. You can’t feel him, but he’s there. _Trust me._ ”

Jeremy calmed himself and nodded. He could do that.

Geoff let him go and stepped away. He began to take in his surroundings. Jeremy saw he was carrying a tarnished pickaxe. A short sword hung from his belt.

“What are you planning on doing?” Jeremy asked. It was only now that he realized that he had no idea what Geoff was going to do here. Jeremy’s plans were looking for Nether warts. That was as far as he was going to go. He didn’t have a clue as to what Geoff was looking for.

“Going hunting,” he said and began to walk off with an air of confidence.

Since it seemed like he knew where he was going—he did say he’d been here before, many times over—Jeremy trotted off after him.

The Nether was an odd place. It seemed and felt like a very grand cave, but at times, he couldn’t even see the roof of the cave. The walls just kept rising and rising and rising until he was sure everything was obscured by clouds.

The ground was made of a rough brown-red rock. There were discernable paths made that led through the high rock walls. He surely would’ve gotten lost if it weren’t for Geoff. He followed him for some time. Geoff seemed to be filled with purpose. His strides were quick and sure, more sure than Jeremy had ever seen him before.

“Where are we headed?” he asked as they continued to squeeze through narrow passages between the cliffs.

“To the fortress. You’ll find what you want there. That’s where all the valuable stuff is.” He vaulted himself up and over a low stone wall. Jeremy followed and squeezed himself through the narrow opening and tumbled down over the other side.

“There are a few things you should know,” Geoff said, keeping his voice low. “This place isn’t entirely void. There are the zombie pig-men. Totally harmless so long as you don’t harm then. Because if you do, they’ll descend on you. Tricky bastards to kill. Then there are the ghasts. Big ugly things that just float around up top. Flammable though, so keep close to the walls and stay out of the open. Make sure you know where to hide if you see one. And then there are the blazes.” Geoff stopped and turned to Jeremy. “Seriously, if you see one, _run._ They don’t kid around. They will kill you on sight.” He continued on.

_I am way in over my head right now._

When they came upon a clearing, Geoff kept his hand stretched out to keep Jeremy back from the edge. Far, _far_ down below was a bed of lava, bubbling and steaming. Jeremy felt sweat drip down his temple just from the sight of it. He didn’t feel any heat just yet. His potion was still working, but he didn’t know yet for how long. They had to keep going.

They went back into the walls that twisted and turned. It wasn’t the first time that night that Jeremy wished he had brought some string with him to lead him back to the portal. Hopefully Geoff’s memory held onto the way back.

The walls turned from the roughened rock into brick formations. They merged seamlessly into one. Geoff stopped once he was fully on the brick and smiled. He actually smiled. “This way,” he said, and Jeremy followed.

The fortress was made of a sturdy brick composition. All straight lines and enclosing features. There were old torch brackets on the walls, all unlit. At points in the fortress there were no windows, so they were encased in darkness.

Geoff seemed to know this place by heart. At every crossroad, he knew which way to turn, and the further they went, the more hurried he became until they were both jogging through the halls, fueled only by Geoff’s determination and Jeremy’s fear of being left alone.

Eventually they stumbled upon an open hallway, what seemed to be set up as a small courtyard. Light streamed in from the open ceiling and there illuminated was a bed of fresh Nether warts. Fresh like this they were a dark ruby red unlike the dried gray and brown Jeremy had worked with. They were about a foot high and seemed like they would belong to a fungus family, only instead of the flat domes that most fungi had, the warts had more bulbous protrusions at the top.

Jeremy looked away from Geoff and dropped down next to the pit where the warts grew from. He removed a knife and some jars from his satchel and began collecting as many Nether warts as he could possibly cram into the jars.

“Fucking goldmine,” he muttered. He took only the big ones, the ones he thought were fully grown. The small ones he would leave so they could grow big and he could come back and get more. He was already thinking of how many heat potions this could create and all the potential  cash and customers that would come to him. This opened up so many more doors for him, so many more opportunities. And this was just the beginning. Who knew what else the Nether held in store for him?

Just as he finished, he began to feel the oppressive heat close in. He pulled out another potion and guzzled it down.

“Hey, Geoff,” he called out. “I’m all good here. What is it that you . . .” Geoff wasn’t here. He looked around wildly. The hall split off into four directions. Geoff could’ve gone down either one of them.

He checked the first and saw that it led to an uncovered bridge that crossed the lava bed. He saw a ghostly shape move as if swimming in the haze up above, illuminated by what he thought was lightning. He checked the second direction. Dead end. The third led to a short set of stairs. He packed his stuff and started up the stairs.

It led him to the second floor of the fortress. There were windows in the walls, lighting his way further down into the second floor. He would call out to Geoff if he weren’t so frightened for his safety. The further he went down the hall, the more sounds he heard. There was a definite hissing from something, and a weird growl, like wind being blown through a pipe but much more forcefully. And then an explosion.

He ran down the hall towards it, knowing that Geoff was probably on the other side of it. He came upon another set of stairs, this time built wide and set up with wrought iron fencing. He slowly climbed the steps, crouching down so he could peak over the top.

The stairs led to a flat clearing, like an old grand hall. There was no ceiling, so it was left open to the elements. In the center of the hall was a golden cage and within it burned a brilliantly golden flame. He knew right then that it was not natural. And off to the side of it stood Geoff. He circled around it slowly, head lifted up as he spoke loudly within the room.

“I know you can hear me,” he said. Jeremy didn’t know who he was talking to. “I’m back, just so you know. Still me. Still the same old Geoff. Well, not the same, but it is me. That you can trust. So just come out and talk to me, you idiot!”

 _Idiot._ Who was Geoff talking to? Jeremy sat up further on the steps, watching as the golden flame in the cage began to grow larger and glow brighter. It took on a form, a vaguely human form that eventually solidified into a man. Broad shouldered, he wore  a vest, baring his arms which were scarred from numerous battles. His dark hair was cut short against his head and he wore a scowl upon his face. Red burned in his eyes.

“What is this?” the man asked. “You seem lost, zombie.” The man then laughed, high pitched and erratic. “You should know better than to trespass.” The man then curled his fists and grew all the brighter. He yelled fiercely and hurled a fire ball at Geoff. Geoff ducked and rolled to the side.

“Michael, it’s me, you idiot!” Geoff shouted, raising his blade to deflect another fire blast from the man, apparently named Michael. Michael didn’t seem to hear him, instead taking on a more elemental form and bursting away from the cage. As he did, two more shapes formed. They were dense forms, dark like coal, surrounded by swirling flames. They each had two arms, ending in four-clawed hands. Every once in a while their smoky forms would form into something like a jackal, all snarling biting teeth. They moved with more grace than Michael, and Jeremy knew then that these were the blazes.

“I can get you out of here!” Geoff said. “The portal! It works. We can go back home! We can get the others. We can make things right again!”

“Enough with the talking!” Michael shouted. “You do not belong here, and if you will not leave, then I will destroy you!” He transformed more into a being of fire and shot off towards Geoff. Geoff was forced to pick up a defensive position, raising his sword to deflect Michael with the flat side of his blade. The other blazes watched on from the sides of the room. It was from Jeremy’s vantage point that he noticed it. While the other blazes floated freely in the room, hounding Jeremy on with their creepy growls and sometimes barking approval, Michael had a wispy tether leading back to the golden cage. It was like a shimmering line of flames. The other blazes didn’t have that.

While he didn’t necessarily understand why Geoff was trying so hard to reason with this human-blaze hybrid, he owed it to the man for getting him here in the first place. So he rose up and cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Geoff! You have to destroy the cage! It’s acting as a tether!”

Geoff quickly turned to him. “Deal with it then!” he replied and tossed Jeremy the pick-axe he’d been carrying. It slid across the ground, landing a few feet away from Jeremy. The two blazes turned their attention on Jeremy. _Shit._

He quickly guzzled down another heat potion and ran for the pick-axe. He scooped it up and ran towards the golden cage. One of the blazes swept down after him. He put the cage between him and the blaze. “Little help here, Geoff!” He lift the pick-axe above his head and swung it down as hard as he could on the cage. The blaze set its clawed hands on either side of the cage, its head lifted over the side looking down at Jeremy. “Geoff!”

“Duck!”

At that moment, Geoff swung his sword like a bat and deflected a fire ball from Michael and hit it towards the blaze. Jeremy ducked down with his arms over his head. The blaze took a direct hit and snarled at Geoff. It swept off towards him. He stood up and started working at the cage once more. It was harder than it looked. He had no idea what he was going to do once he had broken into it. Or if he even could.

He kept at it, swinging harder and harder until the grates of the cage began to give way. “Fucking _shit_.” The second blaze growled at him and pushed off from the wall where it was hovering and sped off towards him. Jeremy pulled away from the cage and waited for the blaze to meet him. Once it was within striking distance, he swung the pick-axe at its head. It swiped through it like a cloud of smoke.

“Oh, come on! Why does it have to be a fucking smoke demon?!”

He swung the axe again and struck something solid in the blaze’s chest. All right. Progress. The blaze clutched its chest and blasted back. It snarled at Jeremy and swept back in a defensive position. He looked back at the cage. There was no way he was going to break into that thing in time before he was incinerated.

He had made a big enough whole to do some damage though. He knelt down and set aside the axe. He opened his satchel and dug around for some potions. He found one of Lasting Water, a bottomless vial of fresh water. He yanked out the stopper and set it on top of the cage and let the bottomless vial dispense its bottomless supply of water.

To be honest, he had no idea if being bottomless was possible. It could’ve been some sort of time sensitive thing, in any case, they had to get going.

As the water doused the flame, the tether to Michael dissipated. _Thank fuck it was so fucking easy!_

Once the tether was gone, Michael’s fire was significantly diminished. He collapsed against Geoff, and the blazes hissed and snarled. Jeremy picked up the pick-axe. “We have to go!” he shouted, tugging at Geoff’s arm. “I don’t know how long that potion is going to last and I don’t know if that tether is going to come back _so._ ”

“Let’s get the fuck out of here then,” Geoff said and he hoisted one of Michael’s arms over his shoulders and helped carry him out of the chamber with the blazes swarming the cage, snarling at the water that continued to douse the golden flame, preventing it from reoccurring.

He helped Geoff carry the half out of it Michael through the fortress and back into the rocky tunnels and caves. “I have _so_ many questions right now,” he said.

“Later,” Geoff grumbled. “We have to get out of here.”

They pushed as fast as they could. Jeremy heard the telltale snarl of a blaze following them into the tunnel.

“Almost there,” Geoff said.

A fiery tendril wrapped itself around Jeremy’s ankle and yanked him back. He lost his footing and fell flat on his face. He began to be dragged back across the rough ground. When he looked back, he saw the blaze, yanking Jeremy further and further back away from the portal. He felt the fire lick against his skin. His potion was wearing off. Soon he’d be burnt.

“Geoff!” he shouted in panic. He looked up and saw Geoff continuing to haul Michael off to the portal. He didn’t stop until Michael was through it, at which point the blaze crawled up over top of Jeremy. He raised his hands to protect his face and felt the overwhelming heat of the blaze burn through the meagre remains of his potion and scorch his hands. He screamed until Geoff returned and stabbed his blade down through the blaze’s midsection. He grabbed Jeremy by his arm and pulled him back through the portal and back to safety.

* * *

“What the hell was that all about?” Trevor’s voice cut through the haze of pain that Jeremy was submerged in.

He blinked, eyesight focusing on Trevor’s anxious and frustrated face looked down at him. “Ow,” he groaned, voice weak and crackling. Mother, he was thirsty.

“There were some complications,” Geoff mumbled.

“Yeah. Right,” Trevor scoffed. “And who the hell is that?”

“Doesn’t concern you. Let’s get everybody back to the fortress, and I’ll explain everything.”

“You better or, buddy, I am coming for your eyes.”

“Noted.”

Jeremy was helped out of the portal room, which had de-activated, leaving the underground cavern dark and once more terrifying. Once they were back at the fortress, Trevor set out filling two bowls with some Healing potions and setting Jeremy’s blistered and bleeding hands inside of them. Jeremy winced, hissing through his teeth. Now that he was a bit clearer headed, he could take in the damage.

The Heat potion prevented him from being scorched black and to the bone, but his palms were utterly raw. His minor Healing potions would only repair some of the damage. He’d either have to concoct something stronger, which would be difficult because he didn’t have any of his _shit_ here, or he’d just have to wrap them up with a poultice and hope the pain went away easily. He wasn’t going to be doing anything fun for the next while, but hey! He got the Nether warts, didn’t he? Isn’t that what started this mess?

_Mother All Mighty._

This was a fucking mess.

He looked up and over at Geoff and the newcomer Michael. Michael was still _steaming_ and _smoking_ for some reason. That and his eyes still seemed to flicker with the golden flames from the cage. But he seemed less . . . _murderous_ which was a good sign. Jeremy just had no idea of what to make of all this.

“Are you okay, Trev?” he asked, turning back to his familiar.

Trevor turned on him. “What? Oh. Yeah. For now. I just . . . I didn’t know what was going to happen when you stepped through. There was nothing in the book and . . .” He lost his words and just sputtered helplessly. “And then you came _back_ hurt and all and it’s just . . . I couldn’t do anything, Jer.”

“I know, bud. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I dragged us into this mess. I was just so excited about being able to use a portal that I didn’t look at what was going on around me. I fucked up big here.”

“Yeah,” Trevor said with a biting edge to his words suggesting that he was hurt. “You did. I think we should just go back home. You got what you wanted, right?”

“Yeah, but . . .” Jeremy looked to Geoff and Michael again. It seemed Geoff was smiling. He seemed content for the first time since Jeremy had met him. And Michael, while he still seemed fairly out of it, was taking everything in with wide eyes. When Geoff pressed something into his hands and whispered something into his ear, he smiled, something small and fragile.

“Oh, come on,” Trevor despaired. He sat down next to Jeremy. “I know that look. You’re too curious for your own good.”

“Do you think that story good be true?” he asked.

“What story?”

“ _The Parable of the Cursed Ones._ ”

Trevor shrugged. “Fuck if I know. I mean, I was just concerned about the brand I found. It’s the same image as the story. And people avoid this place for a reason. I asked around. Everyone thinks this place is cursed. It’d explain why no one has settled it in, like, a thousand years. Besides, what are you thinking?” He followed Jeremy’s gaze to the two half-men huddled together at the other end of the room.

“I think I want to know who—or what—these guys really are.”

* * *

After soaking his hands for an hour, the potion had worn off. The skin had been repaired somewhat. It was still blistered, raw, and red, but he had no open sores. So he dried them and had Trevor help him wrap them up with a healing salve set underneath the bandages. He should be good to go in a day or two. In the meantime, he had a bunch of pertinent questions to ask and no amount of mumbling from Geoff was going to deter him. He nearly fucking _died_ to pull his buddy out of the Nether. The guy at _least_ owed him a few straight forward answers.

“Geoff,” he said with all the confidence and straightforwardness he could muster. “I think you owe me an explanation.”

Geoff had the decency to look somewhat ashamed. “Yeah,” he said wearily, rubbing his face. “I do. See, a long time ago my friends and I . . . we did some pretty stupid shit. Pissed off the wrong people. Anyway, they decided to punish us for the things we did and . . .” His eyes began to flicker back and forth, seemingly caught in an old memory. “And then they made us into this.” He spread out his arms. It took a moment for Jeremy to catch on, but then he realized.

“You’re not a zombie, are you?” he asked quietly. “A proper zombie that is, right?”

Geoff shook his head. “No. It’s just.” He put his hand to his head and closed his eyes. “I can’t keep it all straight. I’m losing a bit more of it each day, and I just . . . I know I fucked up with you. I should’ve told you what I needed to do there in the Nether, but I wasn’t even aware of what I needed to do until I went through.”

“To get your buddy.” Jeremy looked back at Michael who was now up on his feet, walking along the perimeter of the fortress wall, dragging one hand across the large stones.

“Yeah, Michael. Just.” Geoff crossed his arms and looked down at the ground. “Don’t feel like you need to stick around for us. You already helped more than you needed to.”

Jeremy nodded and took it all in. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and he knew then that Trevor was watching him from whatever perch he settled himself on.

He had a choice here. He could walk away with his stash of Nether warts, go back to Gus and the potion stand, and try to make a profit with what potions he could concoct with the ingredients he had. But he could also stay and see this crazy _whatever-it-was_ through and see where it brought him. Wasn’t all that he was looking for was some adventure and excitement?

_Don’t bite off more than you can chew here, buddy._

Since when did Trevor become his conscience?

Jeremy nodded after some thought. “Fine. I’d like to stay and see things through, I guess.” He shrugged. “You just have to keep me in the loop with this shit. My hands are my _living_ here, Geoff.”

“That . . . means a lot to me. I couldn’t have gotten Michael out without your help. I really appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well, I’d stop gushing if I were you. This could all turn to shit eventually.”

“Great. Well, I guess it’s time to go find the next one.”

“Right, um, how many of you are there?”

* * *

Turns out there was five of them. So far, there were two. Three if you counted the golem in the storage room beneath the fortress floor.

Jeremy looked to the children’s book again for clues. He sent Trevor off on an errand to find out any information about this area and about Geoff and Michael and the three others that had been apparently punished and transformed into monsters. He figured there was still a lot he needed to know, and children’s books often embellished stories, real or not.

But for the moment, since he couldn’t do anything with his hands, he was simply sitting with Michael on top of a low stone wall while Geoff shouted into the forest that surrounded the clearing they had walked to. The area looked like an old arena or possibly something for sports, set up in a rectangle surrounded by a low stone wall. It was there that Michael and Jeremy sat side by side, Michael with his face upturned towards the sun and Jeremy resting his injured hands on his knees.

“So,” Jeremy said, trying to cut through some of the awkward tension that had built between them. “I’m Jeremy, by the way. We haven’t been properly introduced yet.”

“Right. Michael.” Michael stuck out his hand and they shook to solidify their greeting.  “Thanks for breaking me out, by the way. I’m sorry about your hands.”

Jeremy waved him off. “You can pay me back in gold or some precious artifacts or whatever later on. I’m just glad you’re not trying to kill me right now.”

Michael huffed out a laugh. “Yeah.” He turned his face down and began to look at his hands, inspecting them closely and curling and uncurling his fingers.

Now that Jeremy wasn’t in danger, he took in Michael more closely. He wasn’t much taller than Jeremy himself, but carried himself as a soldier, as someone who fought for a living. It was how he walked when Geoff had led them from the fortress to here. Shoulders tense, fingers slightly curled in, even footsteps. Even now he had a better look at the scars on Michael’s bared arms, his hands. There was even one on his chin, just a small one, but the marks on his body spoke volumes. Michael had lived a hardened, battle weary life. He even had the short hair to complete the military look.

But he also looked soft underneath the hardened exterior. He carried it mostly in his face, the smooth and rounded cheeks that made him look younger than he probably was.

“So how do you know Geoff?” Michael asked.

“Oh, well, long story short, I was swept down river and carried to the fortress here. I had something he needed, so we decided to team up and work together. I honestly had no idea you were what he was after until the whole confrontation in the Nether. So.” He looked back at what Geoff was doing. Still yelling at the trees apparently.

“How long have you known Geoff?”

“Oh, years,” Michael said. “He was in need of a good swordsman, like, I don’t know, a long ass time ago? I picked up on the ad and now I’m here apparently.”

“So you’re good with swords then?”

Michael smirked. “Oh, yeah. They didn’t call me Mogar the Warrior for nothing. See, I liked to dabble in potions and what not back in the day. Looked into Endurance and Strength potions specifically. I found a way to make the effects last longer and soon everyone was talking about me.”

“Probably because you were _so_ humble.”

Michael laughed, a nice high pitched sound that lit up his face. “ _Clearly._ No. I was just so full of energy all the time, so I channeled it all into swordplay. What about you? What are you into?”

“Oh, potions mainly. It’s the only thing I really excelled in as a kid.”

“That bottomless flask though? That was a stellar idea.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

 _“Michael’s here,_ ” Geoff said off in the distance next to the tree line. _“Don’t you want to see him? I know I wasn’t very nice last time, but I’m trying. I’m trying to get it all back together._ ”

“So what’s it like being half blaze anyway?”

“Well,” Michael said, situating himself so he was more or less lying down on the edge of the wall. “It’s, like, I was already angry before it all went to shit. It’s just been dialed up to eleven. Like there’s this other part of me that _is_ the blaze and we’re constantly fighting for control. It’s exhausting, really. Blazes are such angry fucks, to be honest. Got to keep it on lock down if I don’t want to set the forest on fire.”

“And.” Jeremy licked his lips. He might be overstepping here, but he needed _more_. He needed to know what was going on. “And how did this all happen?”

Michael ran a hand down over his face. “We did dumb shit and now we’re paying for it. I don’t remember as much as I used to. I was basically a blaze for a long ass time. You kind of forget your humanity when you’re down in a place like that for that long. Same with Geoff. I mean, he looks like _shit._ It’s not going to be long before he’s actually a zombie. I don’t even remember what we did that was that bad.”

Jeremy flexed his hands and winced. Another dead end then. Hopefully Trevor was having a better time of pulling information on these guys.

From within the trees, an arrow was loosed, narrowly pining Geoff’s foot to the ground. From the dense leaves came a voice. _“Fuck off, Geoff! I’m not doing this again.”_

_“Even after all this time, you still can’t aim for shit.”_

_“Like I was trying to hit_ you. _Just go away.”_

_“Gav—”_

Michael jumped off the wall and ran over to Geoff. Jeremy gingerly did the same and slowly walked over, making sure to stand behind Geoff and Michael as a means of protection from wayward arrows and also to give them some space.

“Gavin?” Michael said, voice soft. He took some steps closer to the tree line, leaving Geoff behind. “Come on out. It’s not like you could possibly hurt me. I’m half fire right now.” As proof, he lifted up his right arm and transformed it into transparent flame. “Come on, buddy. It’s been ages. They got me out.”

For a time nothing happened. Michael took another step forward before being told to stop.

“It’s a proximity thing this is,” said the unknown Gavin. He sighed and the tree began to shake. “All right. I’m coming down.”

Gavin landed lightly before them after dropping off the lowest branch of the tree. He was entirely dressed in shades of green, much like a creeper would be, only he wasn’t a creeper. Jeremy knew then that he was like Geoff and Michael—part human, part monster.

Gavin had a cowl hiding most of face as well as a hood coming up over his head. He had a quiver strapped to his back and a bow in his hands. He pulled down the cowl and removed his hood. From where Jeremy was he could see the scale pattern of a creeper skin creeping up the man’s neck. His hands showed the same patterning. Like Geoff and Michael, he was slowly being transformed into something else, losing pieces of his humanity along the way.

When he finally came out and showed his face, Michael smiled. “Hey, Gavin.”

Gavin smiled sheepishly, but it didn’t last long. He looked incredibly sad. “Hey, Michael.”


	5. Didn't You Get the Memo?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so about that long delay
> 
> i can explain
> 
> i -- *runs*

When you have a creeper, a zombie, and a blaze together in a small clearing, you’d expect some type of terrible joke.

Well, Jeremy felt like his whole life was one terrible joke.

He was currently still watching the reunion between the three of them, feeling like the outsider he was. Michael and Gavin were just looking at each other, offering small smiles but not going forward to touch each other in any way.

What Jeremy knew of creepers was this: they were a creature that preferred heavily wooded and damp climates. Few ever came out to the desert, and if they did, they quickly succumbed to the hostile environment. Jeremy had really only ever known them from pictures.

They were thought to be an experiment gone wrong, when a witch decided to create their own form of life and used combustive materials in order to create a spark of life. Whatever the reason was—be it magical or natural—creepers were not well liked. They moved like a snail, slowly and leaving behind a greenish ooze that was fairly harmless. They had clutches of eggs, gathered together at the bases of trees. Their green patterned skin provided ample camouflage for the creepers to hide. They weren’t a naturally predatory creature, but if anything came within five feet of them, their biology made them literally explode. It was more of a defense mechanism than anything, so it was mandatory to teach young children not to get too close to creepers. They were docile, nothing menacing about them.

So as Jeremy watched the fumbling reunion, he realized then that the distance between Gavin and the others must be painful. If they’d been separated for centuries, then it must be hard not to be able to just _fling_ yourself at the friends you’d thought you’d lost. He didn’t know if Gavin would die if he stepped any closer to Michael and Geoff, but he assumed Michael and Geoff might be hurt should Gavin decide to explode.

“Who’s the kid?” Gavin asked after he and Michael stopped staring at one another. He was acknowledging Jeremy’s presence.

“Hey,” Jeremy said, slightly affronted. “I’m twenty-three.”

“Yeah,” Gavin said. “Talk to me when you’re five hundred.”

“Settle down,” Geoff said. “That’s Jeremy. I’m pretty sure you’ve seen him around over the past few weeks. If you haven’t been too busy with your _fucking sulking_.”

“I wasn’t sulking. I was despairing. There’s a big difference between the two.”

“Yeah, yeah. Write me a fucking poem. Are you coming with us or what?”

“Um.” This was where Gavin hesitated. “I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s good for me to be there right now.”

“Gavin,” Geoff said, taking a step closer. Gavin tensed. “I know. I know it’s not like before, but I’m putting things back together now. I’m getting pieces of it back again. We can fix this. Jeremy, here.” Geoff ex/tended a hand and pointed it to Jeremy. “He’s going to get us through this. I know it. Michael’s here _because_ of him. We get Ryan. We get Jack. And the boys are back in business!”

“You are aware of one _fundamental_ issue with that plan right?”

“Yeah?”

“The part where we’re all still monsters. Did you happen to forget about that? I wouldn’t be surprised since your brain is turning to mush and all.”

Geoff huffed. “It’s not ideal, but one thing at a time here, Gavin. Come back with us and we’ll discuss where things are going next.”

Gavin kicked at the ground. “Fine.”

“Come on, Jeremy.”

They left the arena and headed back into the forest. As soon as they were on their way, Gavin pulled up his cowl and hood, stuffing his hands deep into the pockets of his tattered jacket. He walked at a far pace behind the others. Jeremy continuously found himself looking over his shoulder at him. He couldn’t help himself. The mystery of these men continued to intrigue him.

It seemed Gavin was at odds with Geoff, possibly due to some former disagreement.  Jeremy didn’t know why he hadn’t heard of him earlier. Why Geoff hadn’t gone out to yell at the woods earlier. Or maybe he had and Jeremy just didn’t take notice. Whatever it was, Gavin had been here from the beginning, watching and waiting, doing nothing until Geoff was assured to bring Michael back.

In a way, Jeremy felt a bit used. He was being used right now. Geoff had been using him since the beginning. Trevor was right about this situation. Jeremy needed to be careful about what was going to happen should he stay and help these guys further. He need to keep his wits about him. He had already been burnt badly because of this. How far would Geoff push him next? What would happen to him next?

_You need to be careful here, buddy._

Yeah, yeah. I know.

Fuck. Why was he like this?

* * *

The three of them stand off to the side while Geoff scrounged around in his belongings for something specific. Jeremy studied Gavin and in return Gavin looked at him, accusing eyes above the edge of his cowl.

“So how’d you get into this mess?” he asked.

Jeremy frowned. “Excuse me?”

“What’d he promise you?” He jerked his head in Geoff’s direction. “Gold? Diamonds? He lost all of that _years_ ago.”

“He didn’t promise me anything,” Jeremy said, and it was true. He didn’t really promise Jeremy anything. He’d had a look in the storage space down below. There was nothing down there of value to Jeremy. “I’m here because I want to have some fun and discover shit.”

“And has he told you the truth yet? About what we are and why we are?”

“Uh.” He casted his gaze over to Geoff, who seemed unconcerned about what Gavin was saying. Michael looked impassive for the moment, arms resolutely crossed. “No.”

“Of course he fucking wouldn’t. You ever read the stories about us? The parables they got in those books?”

“One of them, yeah.”

“Yeah, well, they’re all fucking lies, for one thing. They got everything wrong. And all I can really tell you is that, yeah, we were turned into monsters, but for the reasons they give it’s all a bunch of shite. Pure shite.”

“So? What happened?”

Gavin sighed. “If I could fucking tell you, I would, but after arguing with that idiot.” He was talking about Geoff. “For centuries, you tend to forget the real reason why it all happened. All I can remember though is that it was all Geoff’s _fucking_ fault, so don’t trust a single word he says.”

“Your confidence in me to get this all sorted out astounds me, Gavin,” Geoff said, clearly unaffected by Gavin’s strong choice of words.

“What the hell happened between the two of you?” Michael asked, angling his stance towards Gavin. “Last I remember, you guys were all over each other.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to deal with the fallout afterwards. Everything went to shit after you and Ryan were, well, _banished._ ” Gavin wrapped his arms around his abdomen, an action of deep discomfort. “It wasn’t the same after. We just kept arguing with each other. And then there was the whole issue with Jack—”

“Jack,” Michael said suddenly. “Yeah, where is he?”

They all looked to Geoff expectantly. The red stone torch glowed from its bracket on the wall. Geoff sighed but did not look at them. “Jack is . . . sleeping. He doesn’t want to be disturbed. Not right now.”

Jeremy knew there was ore to that story than met the eye. Jack’s heart had been removed, and it had seemed to pain Geoff in some way.

“What’s the issue with Jack?” Michael turned to Gavin for an answer.

Gavin sighed. “I wasn’t there when it happened, but one day Jack just didn’t come out of the tower. And all Geoff would say was that he was sleeping.”

“Where is he?”

“Down in storage.”

Michael ran a hand over his head. “ _Fuck,_ ” he whispered.

They drifted into an uncomfortable silence as Geoff continued his search. It wasn’t the first—nor would it be the last—instance that Jeremy felt acutely uncomfortable. There was a lot of unspoken history between just these three people. Who knew what would happen when they were all gathered together? He hoped Trevor was having a better time finding information than he was, because currently he was shit out of luck.

Eventually, Geoff found whatever it was he was looking for and gathered the three of them around an old cloth map that he’d unfurled over a chest. The map was very old. There were landmarks that Jeremy wasn’t familiar with, names of cities that didn’t exist anymore.

“As much as I can remember,” Geoff said, “this is where we need to go.” He set his finger down on the western mountains. There was a strange marking drawn there, what looked to be an eye with feline like pupil with a square outline. “The portal _should_ be there.”

“And just how are we supposed to open the portal?” Gavin asked with a pessimistic edge to his words. “You need ender pearls to create Eyes of Ender. And last I heard of it, there haven’t been any endermen since it all went to shit. Jeremy.” All eyes turned to him. “You haven’t seen any endermen, have you?”

“Uh.” Jeremy blinked. “No. They’re all just stories. Mythical creatures, you know?”

Gavin threw out a hand in a gesture that clearly meant _see?_ “I know what you’re trying to do here, Geoff. You want to get to the End. You want to find Ryan. We can’t do that if we can’t get the _smegging portal_ open.”

Geoff looked up at Gavin with an endearing smile on his face. “Remember the Hoard?”

“Of course we remember the Hoard,” Gavin said. “It was the Hoard that started this whole mess anyways. I’m surprised you even remember it considering your brain is half mush.”

“Yeah, and the half that isn’t mush is trying damn hard to fix this whole mess, so give me a chance and I’ll tell you what I’m thinking of.” He tapped a point on the mountains further up from where this supposed portal was. “We are going to go into the Altar and see if there’s _anything_ in the Hoard to help us. And you know who’s going to get us in there?” Geoff pointed to Jeremy.

“What?”

“You should see what the kid can do with potions! He’s a fucking genius. I bet if we look around here we can find some old grimoires for him to put to good use. _And_ —here’s the kicker—he has the grimoire to make the fucking portal work! We are good to go!”

Gavin and Michael both turned to Jeremy. “You have a portal grimoire?” Michael asked.

“Oh! Yeah. Hang on.” Jeremy went to his satchel and delicately pulled out the grimoire. He held it awkwardly in his hands to prevent himself from further pain. He handed the grimoire to Michael. “Here. Open it for me, will you?” He told him the combination to the lock and together they flipped through the pages until they came upon the portal to the End. It was a strange looking portal, supposed to be built flat instead of vertically and within the shape of a square rather than a rectangle. It used ingredients he had never heard of, but it should be rather easy to activate, considering that the book said _There is only one way to construct a portal to The End. And that is with the use of the Ender Gate, a frame that can be activated using nine (9) Eyes of Ender._

“So,” Jeremy said. “The only way to get to The End is to use a pre-existing frame called the Ender Gate?”

He didn’t get a straight answer. Michael shrugged. “We’ve only ever been there once. And it took for- _fucking-_ ever to get there in the first place. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Jeremy looked back at the grimoire. To make the Eyes of Ender, he needed blaze powder that came from dismantling blaze rods which came from scavenging the bodies of blazes themselves. Holy Mother this was complicated.

“And what does the Hoard have to do with all this?” he asked.

“How do you think we’re going to get the Ender Pearls?” Geoff asked.

It wasn’t the first—nor would it be the last—instance that Jeremy thought _I am way in over my head._

* * *

 

It was around a warm fire and a pot full of stew that they went over the facts. Gavin stayed close to the wall, far from them so he wouldn’t accidentally explode. He had at least removed his hood and cowl.

“So what is this Hoard thing?” Jeremy asked, unwrapping the bandages from his hands so he could soak them again.

“It’s a dragon’s hoard,” Michael said. “A dragon decided to take residence in this dormant volcano, hollowed it out to keep all its gold and belongings. We used to steal shit from it all the time. If there are any Ender Pearls left in this world, they have to be there.”

“So how do we get there then? That’s a three week walk from here. Two by horse.”

“Or one by boat,” Gavin said. “There’s a river that leads all the way to the mountains. We take the river, we cut our travel time in half.”

“All right,” Jeremy said. “So we take the boat. What then? I have no idea what you guys want from me, I have no idea what I’m getting myself into, and I have no idea why we’re going to The End. Will someone _please_ tell me what’s going on?” There. He stood up for himself. Now hopefully he would get some answers.

“We need to get to the Hoard,” Geoff said.

“To get the Pearls,” Michael said.

“But the only way to get in there without being noticed by an angry dragon is with the use of some Invisibility and some Stealth potions. And you’re the only witch that I know of who can get us in there. These two idiots are hopeless with potions and I have half a working brain. You’re our ace in the hole here.”

“And once we have these Pearls and get the portal working, what next? Because last time I jumped through a portal with you, I nearly died.”

“We’re going to The End because that’s where they put Ryan,” Gavin said. The other men looked down, ashamed possibly. Gavin looked pointedly at Geoff with an emotion that Jeremy couldn’t peg down. “They put Ryan in there and now we want to break him out. But The End is always hard to get to. It took us a few months to get everything set up for the first time over. I won’t lie to you. It’s a gloomy place, full of monsters that want to get into your mind. That and the dragon. But.” Gavin shrugged, preferring to study his cuticles than look at anyone else. “It’s not all that bad. Not if you’re popping in for a visit.”

“Not if you’re there for a long time,” Jeremy finished, picking up on the cue that this Ryan guy had been there for a thousand years, rotting away like the others had been, changing into something like the others were.

“All right, well, that means I need to get my equipment here, get set up. Oh, and a list of ingredients while I’m at it.” After finishing his soak—his hands had greatly improved—he pulled out his notebook and ripped out a sheet of paper. “Do you either of you know how to read?” Gavin and Michael both nodded. “Good.” He jotted down everything he could off the top of his head that he knew he would need for a trip such as this. “This is what I know I need. I have to head back home and collect my stuff. Shouldn’t take too long.”

Gavin and Michael both read over the list.

“Blaze rods?!” Michael said. “Are you kidding me? You just got me out of there!”

“Yeah, and now I need some to make fucking Eyes of Ender.”

“I can’t go back there! I’ll get stuck in that cage again. Probably.”

“Yeah, and I can’t go either,” Gavin said. “I’ll probably explode from the heat.”

They all turned to Geoff. “I’m already falling apart. Why are you looking at me?”

“I’ll make some Heat Resistant and Flame Retardant potions,” Jeremy said. “Will that make you fucking happy?”

Geoff shrugged.

“There. Now, as I said, I’ll be back in a few days with my shit so we can get set up and get this over with.”

Gavin snickered from his place by the wall. “Damn, Geoff. I like this kid.”

* * *

 

When Jeremy woke the next morning, he found himself alone. Light was starting to filter through the gaps of the fortress walls. He flexed his hands and found them to be only slightly pink. They had healed, leaving behind new skin. Perfect. He could get going then. He gathered a few provisions and began to make his way out of the fortress when he saw a figure sat upon the edge of one of the holes in the wall. It was Gavin. He was alone.

Jeremy scanned the wall and found a climbable path up to Gavin. He decided then that he was going to go up and sit beside him. It would be an opportunity to speak to him alone and put some more pieces together about what he was getting himself into. So he set off and began to climb up the fractured wall and to the edge where Gavin had settled himself. He kept a fair distance between the two of them and looked out to what Gavin was seeing.

It was a breathtaking view. From this high up, Jeremy could see the expansive forest before them, the tops of the great trees lit aflame by the rising sun. The river widened at some points, separating the forest as it curved its way through. Even from here Jeremy could tell there were other structures in this part of the woods. He could make them out a little, covered in ivy like they were. Tall spires of stone perhaps, old watch towers, great marvels of architecture.

“Why are you up here?” Gavin asked.

“To talk to you,” Jeremy said. “I need to know what I’m getting into here. Geoff doesn’t remember anything and if he does, it’s all useless crap. And Michael seems pretty out of it still, like he’s still figuring it all out, figuring out what century he lives in.”

Gavin sighed and unfolded his long legs from where he had curled them against his body. He let them dangle over the edge of the wall. “It’s hard, you know? Trying to remember it all? I think Geoff got the worst of it. His brain is actually turning to mush right now. The rest of us . . . time just eats away at you. You live too long, got too many memories, things get shuffled around, shoved out. Geoff was a brilliant guy once, you know. Always came up with the greatest plans. Brilliant witch, too. He was an earth witch, really good with red stone.”

“And you?”

“Earth witch as well. He showed me how to _literally_ move the earth. With just a wand. Can you believe that?”

“So what happened then?”

“We were too cocky for our own good. Messed with things we shouldn’t.”

“Like this?” He pulled out the children’s book and tossed it to Gavin. He opened it to the page that Jeremy had marked and began to read through the pages. He smirked.

“This is _so_ wrong,” he said.

“Like what?”

“The whole Meg story? Like yeah, she was a Siren, but she didn’t get off on dragging sailors to their deaths. She just liked lifting their wallets and stealing their jewelry. It was for fun. And the blaze bit with Michael? Yeah, he liked fighting, but that came through a _different_ portal. Not ours. We were just helping the village that it burnt down to the ground. And the names? Where did the author come up with this crap?”

Jeremy found himself smiling along with him. “It’s a children’s book. It’s not supposed to be stimulating.”

“And they called Geoff a god. He doesn’t need a bigger ego than he already has. Don’t let him read this.” He tossed the book back.

“Noted. So how did it all happen? What went wrong?”

“We messed around with a dragon. He didn’t like it, so we got cursed. And when I say he didn’t like it, I mean he _really didn’t like it and caused up such a stir that the Great Mothers had to come down and fix the whole mess._ They broke the portals. Michael and Ryan got stuck on the other sides. And the rest of us were just left here to rot.” He flicked off a loose stone from the wall.

“Dragons and that’s it?” Jeremy asked. “That’s all I need to know?”

“Yep. If I remember anything else, I’ll be sure to tell you.”

Jeremy nodded, a sudden weight lifted off his chest. “That’s all I could ask for.”

“Also. If Geoff goes off and promises you ideas of grandeur and great piles of gold, just blow him off. It would’ve saved me a lot of trouble.”

* * *

 

Jeremy’s makeshift potion station hadn’t changed much. He loaded up the last vestiges of his potion making into a wagon when he saw the cat—or rather, Gus’s familiar, the long haired black cat that always seemed to never leave Gus but follow Jeremy around.

To be honest, Jeremy had no idea if the cat was actually a familiar or if Gus was actually a witch. He never actually witnessed Gus doing any witchy type things. And he’d never seen the cat change into something else. Then again, they could be a very private pair, but Jeremy could feel the magic off that cat. Whatever it was, he was decidedly a little worried that the cat was here. Looking at him. Staring at him unblinkingly. It was off putting and he didn’t like it.

“Don’t you have other places to be?” he asked, kicking his foot in the direction of the cat as if that would spook it. Its ears twitched. Nothing more happened.

His attention was pulled away from the cat when Trevor decide to appear, transforming in a flurry of feathers. “We really need to work on this communication thing,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I thought you were still at the fortress.”

“Had to come back on short notice,” Jeremy said, handing Trevor a bottle of water. “Sorry. Something you need to tell me?”

“Well, I looked around, but everyone’s got conflicting stories of what actually happened there.”

“Do you know anything about the city that was there before hand?”

“A bit. It used to be real bustling place, apparently. The ruins there? The one you live in? Used to be a tall ass tower. Like you could see it for _miles._ There used to be other buildings there as well, houses, treasuries, sports arenas. They had their own library, too. A huge one. Full of all the books you could ever imagine. It used to be a real bustling place. But there was a dragon incident. Took out a huge part of the tower apparently, burnt almost everything to the ground, and the rest of it was just left to rot. Everyone left, and it’s been like that ever since.”

“What is it with these guys and dragons?”

“You heard about the dragon part too?”

“Not that part, but I was told they messed around with a dragon and that they got cursed by it. Have you ever seen any dragons at all before?”

Trevor shook his head. “All the dragons either died out or went to sleep, like, permanently. Permanent hibernation.”

Jeremy wearily rubbed his face. “Ugh, and they want to take me to an old dragon hoard, too.”

“What?”

“What?”

“What’s this about a dragon hoard?”

“Right,” Jeremy said, stretching his arm back to rub the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’m going to a dormant volcano and looking for stuff. Did I not send you a memo?”

“See? This is what I’m saying about communication. We need to get better with it.”

* * *

 

At the fortress, Jeremy went to work. He set up his cauldron, set up a table full of vials and flasks and jars. Michael and Gavin had gathered enough materials for him to start making new Heat Resistance potions so that Geoff could go back to the Nether and gather some blaze rods. By the afternoon Jeremy had a batch ready to go and sent Geoff off to the portal underground. From there, he opened one of the old grimoires Geoff had just lying around. The pages were dotted over with water spots and mold. It smelt . . . _funky._ But for the moment, it was all he had.

To make an Invisibility potion—and not to mention Stealth potions—he needed spider silk, purified water, and the dust of diamonds. Invisibility potions were not easy to make, nor were the materials easy to gather, but once it was all together, the process was pretty straight forward. Purifying water was simply to boil it and strain it. Working with spider silk was tricky. The properties of were amplified with the diamonds and the water. Numerous times had people walked straight into spider webs because they couldn’t fucking see them right away, not until the light hit it _just_ right or they walked straight into them. And when you added diamonds to water? Poof! Gone! Just like that.

Stamina potions needed some fairly odd ingredients. This included the bones of a horse. The bones needed to be crushed, the marrow extracted, and everything else to be stewed. Jeremy had drank a stamina potion once. It was horrendous. He contemplated adding some vanilla to make it less nauseating, but decided against it because messing with ratios could get him killed. He’d just have to stomach it.

It took Jeremy longer than expected to get the blaze rods. He wasn’t willing to put his life on the line, so Geoff was the one to go down and get it all. Armed with several different types of potions, he went off into the portal and spent five days in there. Jeremy decided that after the sixth day he would go in to make sure Geoff hadn’t been burnt to a crisp, but thankfully he didn’t have to. Geoff returned with a bag full of blaze rods, hair slightly singed and smelling of a perpetual camp fire. He had Michael pound the rods into a fine powder, which he shoved into a jar.

When everything was set, all they needed was a boat to take down through the river. Gavin took care of that part, managing to take a large boat from a nearby fisherman and scaring him off in the process. While Jeremy felt a bit guilty about how the boat was acquired, he promised he would return the boat after they were done or at least leave the equivalent of a boat in gold pieces for the fisherman to buy a new boat.

He wasn’t entirely without morals.

After preparing their provisions, they were off on the river, the four of them and occasionally a Trevor. Gavin was in charge of manning the rudder, seeing as he needed to stay as far away from everyone as possible. Jeremy was in charge of the map and compass, since Geoff could hardly remember where they were going and Gavin said that “Michael’s shit at directions.”

“Every damn time he left the city, I made sure he had a locator spell on him,” Gavin continued to say. “You’d think that with a huge tower in the sky that he’d find his way back. He’d end up in the frozen tundra if it weren’t for me.”

Michael would only grin from where he was reclining on some of their crates. He seemed at ease, taking Gavin’s gentle ribbing with great enthusiasm. “Oh, quit your whining. It gave you an excuse to leave your boring meetings with Geoff.”

“My meetings weren’t that boring,” Geoff said.

“Clearly, you don’t remember them like I do.”

Jeremy looked down at the map set upon his legs and found himself smiling. While he knew there was residual tension between the three of them, it was nice to listen to their banter. They were an interesting group of people. There was a lot of history between them. Geoff being the leader and Gavin and Michael his followers. He didn’t know if he could trust them yet. They’d been cursed for a reason. He just didn’t know what the reason fully was yet. They seemed like nice people, though. They obviously cared for each other even if they could do some damage with their words and tones.

In a way, he pitied them. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to slowly lose yourself, to be chipped away at with a monster mentality. He could see it in their eyes every once in a while, the way they glossed over with fog, like they forgot who they were for a moment in time. Only to snap back and remember that they had forgotten everything.

And it seemed they knew they were running out of time. Jeremy wondered how much time they had left before they were fully transformed into the monsters they were cursed to be.

He turned his face towards the sun and saw the outline of the western mountains off in the distance, just tiny bumps against the horizon. What awaited them there, he couldn’t possibly guess. But it left a curdled feeling in his stomach that he was way in over his head by staying with these men.

Trevor came to him then and settled on his shoulder, a silent and comforting weight that said to him he wasn’t alone in this. But he couldn’t help but feel that something was going to go horribly wrong.


	6. Let Sleeping Dragons Lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally
> 
> slowly getting back to a regular update schedule. consistent updates to follow!

The thing about dragons was that no one knew anything about dragons.

They had books written about them, paintings made of them, sculptures, cults. You name it. But in living memory, no one had ever seen a dragon. No one in a thousand years. The only evidence of dragons was their Runespeech on the walls of some famous caves Jeremy had never been to. And their skeletons. Apparently there was a full skeleton of a dragon centered in the city of Liefshire. The skeleton was under strict guard and preservation by those of the Order of the Dragon.

Anything touched by a dragon, anything previously owned by a dragon was given utmost respect. Because dragons could fuck your shit up six ways from sundown. They had been the oldest race in the world, beings of pure magic, at one with everything in the world, everything in the universe. They had taught the first witches how to harness their magical gifts and so were created the first schools of magic.

Witches owed everything to dragons. But one day they all just disappeared.

Jeremy had read the stories. It was part of his history classes at school.

Dragons were very large creatures, many times the size of any large land animal. They could be heard from hundreds of miles away. The beat of their wings was like a thunder clap. But one day, the air was quiet, the sky empty, the ground still. The dragons had left, leaving behind no bodies, no trace of where they had gone. The most likely hypothesis was that they had gone into a deep sleep, the deepest of sleeps—the Eternal Sleep it was called. For whatever reason—since no one knew shit about dragon physiology—the dragons had gone into a deep state of hibernation, carving out holes beneath the surface of the earth for them to sleep, surrounded by their most precious possessions. You’d think that since _all_ the dragons went to sleep in the earth that if you dug enough holes you’d find at least one of them. But nope. Not a single one had been found in the thousand years that they’d gone to sleep.

And now Jeremy was going to a place where one dragon had supposedly fallen asleep. He looked to Geoff’s map and looked at the markings, read the names of some of the places that no long existed on modern maps.

“Why is this place called the Altar?” he asked. “That is where we’re headed, right?”

“It’s called the Altar because it’s where all the dragons used to meet,” Michael explained. “Like, they carved into the edges of this volcano and made their seats for their meetings or whatever. Whatever dragon was the top dog at that time got to control the Altar and inherit the vast amount of stuff in the Hoard there. But by the time we came onto the scene, the volcano there had gone dormant and the dragons largely abandoned the place. Except for this one guy. He made it, like, his home. Yeah, we used to go in there whenever we were bored and wanted a challenge.”

“What kind of stuff did you take from there anyway?”

“Well, it was an easy source of Ender Pearls.”

“Yeah, endermen are hard to kill,” Gavin added. “They teleport. So if you ever though you had one cornered. Blip! And they’d be gone. Took forever to get enough to make an Eye of Ender. Much less open a portal.”

“There’s literally a mountain of gold in there,” Geoff said.

“Glad to see you’re still alive, Geoff,” Gavin said. “Thought we’d have to roll you off into the river.”

Jeremy looked over his shoulder and saw that Geoff had laid himself flat on the deck of the boat, arms stretched out, eyes closed as he laid beneath the sun. He had a slight smile to his face.

“Just trying to warm my cold bones,” he said.

“I’m offended you didn’t ask me for help,” Michael said. “I’m half fire, you know.”

“Michael, how did you know I liked the smell of burning, rotten flesh?” Geoff asked, glibly. This got a slight chuckle out of Michael and a small smile from Gavin.

“So, Jeremy, what kind of witch are you?” Michael asked, turning everyone’s attention on him.

“Potions witch,” he said. “With latent electricity.”

“Latent? What does that mean?”

“It means I can make one _mean_ static charge if you piss me off. Other than that, I’m harmless.”

Geoff laughed. “ _Harmless_. Hilarious. I saw how you handled yourself in the Nether. Naw, you’ve got a quick mind. You’re anything _but_ harmless.”

“Who taught you how to make those Heat Resistance potions?” Gavin asked.

“Uh, myself. I like to experiment and, um, you know, self test.”

Michael laughed. “Wow. A genius _and_ an idiot. No wonder you fell for him, Geoff.”

“The stars aligned the day I met him,” Geoff said.

“Oho,” Michael said. “The stars. Watch out, Jeremy. I think Geoff has been seduced by you.”

Jeremy laughed, ducking his head down and smiling despite himself. “I don’t think you need to worry about me. I’ve got, like, _zero_ skills in flirting. And not to mention social skills.”

“Oh, come on. A handsome guy like you?”

“I’m married to my craft, Michael.”

“I’ll say. The most proficient potion witch I ever knew was Ryan. And I think you got him matched for speed and efficiency.”

“Also not to mention creativity,” Geoff said. “The way you use those Nether warts? Genius.”

“How is it that you’ve known this guy for only a few months and he’s a genius, yet you’ve known me for over a thousand years and I’m still an idiot?” Gavin said.

“That’s ‘cause you are,” Michael said.

“I am not! Jeremy, help me out!”

“I am in no position to judge since I’ve only known about you for a week.”

Michael and Geoff both laughed.

“Nice try, Gavin,” Geoff said. “But I think the new guy is capable of judging you for himself.”

Gavin grumbled to himself at the back of the boat, and Jeremy turned back to look at the map. They were making good time. With continual shifts throughout the night, their progress down the river was swift and careful. It was a rather gentle river they were taking, and with the constant gentle breeze buffeting their sail, they’d reach the foot of the mountain in no time.

Trevor, while remaining firmly in his crow form, would often fly forward and give Jeremy a good look of the terrain. Nothing but forest with the odd meadow clearing. A homestead or two. A logging float down a different path of the river. For the most part, they were alone, and Jeremy meant to keep it that way. He didn’t know how it would look to an outside observer—a witch travelling with three half monster, half human hybrids. They would either be given odd looks or be shot at, so the lesser human interaction, the better.

They were his secret, really. He didn’t know if it was a protective instinct over them, or if it was his way of finally proving to the universe that he could do it on his own, but he just didn’t feel the need to go around telling anyone about what he’d found. Except for Matt about the portal business, but then again, they’d been lifelong friends, taking secrets to their graves.

Whatever Jeremy was going to get out of this mission, he hoped it was some self-worth and confidence. He deserved it after all. After so many years of questioning his magic, his identity as a witch, his role in life, he was finally discovering something he was good at. He could be an explorer, an innovator of new potions. It was exhilarating to have so much drive again.

When they reached the end of the river, they beached the boat and carried it into the brush, covering it with foliage for their return journey. The mountains towered above them, reaching high up into the sky, white clouds swirling around their peaks. There was a sudden metallic taste in Jeremy’s mouth when he breathed the air deeply. There was ancient magic here.

“The air tastes funny,” he said.

“Yeah. It’s from the dragons when they were still here,” Gavin said, pulling up his hood and cowl once more. “There’s nothing like the feeling of dragon magic. Too bad they’re gone, though.”

“Yeah. Too bad.”

The journey to the Altar would take another two weeks on foot to climb the summit. In preparation for this part of the journey, Jeremy was stalked up on stamina potions and warm clothing. The snowy peaks did not bode well for him, especially since he grew up in a hot-as-fuck desert.

The others seemed unconcerned about the gradual weather change. Michael was a fire being. Geoff was technically dead. And Gavin, well. Jeremy didn’t know how the biology of a creeper would help him, but he assumed it had to do with the thick creeper skin he was developing—an extra layer of protection, he guessed.

They set out through the last leg of the forest, where the trees had transformed into a tall, spindly pines. They followed a well-worn footpath through the forest, feet crushing down upon old pine needles. It was a pleasant forest—open, desolate. If he wasn’t on a mission to potentially see a dragon, he’d have set up a homestead here. Become a goat herder or something.

_Goats. . ._

* * *

Despite the fact that Jeremy was certain he’d never walked this far in his entire life, he had a good time with the journey up the mountain. He felt at ease travelling with them, sleeping in their presence and knowing he wouldn’t end up dead. They camped out under the stars with a dying fire Michael had lit when they’d stopped for the night. Here there were so many more stars. The moon was but a sliver, the landscape all but black in the night without its silver glow.

It was when they were most relaxed and comfortable that they would talk, about anything, everything. About old stories that Geoff had forgotten, Jeremy’s potion mishaps, Michael and Gavin’s adventures together. Everything but about what happened to them. None of them seemed to remember. Jeremy didn’t want to push his luck in goading for information—he still knew what personal privacy was—but he was still slightly worried.

Trevor was constantly on edge. The fact that he didn’t want to show his human form to these guys was saying a lot. He was sensing something about them that Jeremy couldn’t. And while they seemed like decent people, they were also dangerous people. Half monster with special abilities, Jeremy had to keep his guard up, especially for when they had those moments where they forgot themselves, when Michael’s eyes burned harder, when Gavin started hissing in the way that creepers do, when Geoff seemed more zombie like than usual.

Good people. But dangerous.

Jeremy had to remember that bit.

The further they travelled, the colder it became. Jeremy had a Heat potion for this, providing him with his own bubble of warmth. He also had a warm wool coat that Trevor had buried himself into and refused to come out. He sat warmly against Jeremy’s chest, hardly making a sound, preferring to sleep throughout most of the journey instead of braving the strong mountain gales.

Thankfully, they didn’t have to brave them for long. Their path took them through secluded mountain crevices, where the rock rose up on either sides of them. There were scratch marks alongside the smoother surfaces of the stones, long jagged things caused by dragon claws. It was the only explanation.

“How will we know when we get there?” Jeremy asked.

“Gavin knows,” Geoff said as they squeezed through a narrow passage. “Gavin always knows.”

“Yeah, because I’m the only one who had the mind to make a map when we first came here,” Gavin said. “Honestly, you’d’ve lost your damn head without me.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it!” Michael interjected. “Jack was the real reason half of Geoff’s plans were put into action.”

Gavin sighed. “I miss Jack.”

“Yeah. What happened to him?”

Jeremy briefly looked over his shoulder at Geoff. Geoff refused to answer, and the matter of Jack the iron golem was dropped.

A while later, Gavin decided to become chatty and ask Jeremy some questions to pass the time.

“What’s the deal with your familiar there, Jeremy?”

“His name is Trevor,” Jeremy said, and the being in question decided to poke his head out and see what was happening.

“Yeah. Trevor. What’s his deal?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—he’s a flippin’ bird all the time, isn’t he? Why doesn’t he come out and say hello?”

Trevor looked up at Jeremy and cawed in a huff. The feathers around his neck were ruffled. He pulled out of Jeremy’s jacket and scrabbled up onto his shoulder before flying off into the sky.

“I think you offended him, Gavin,” Michael said.

“What did I do? I was just asking a question.”

“Yeah, I get the feeling he doesn’t like you all that much,” Jeremy said, squinting up into the gray sky to see where Trevor had flown off to.

“How can he already not like me? He barely knows me!”

“Are you kidding?” Geoff said. “He probably took one look at your face and decided you weren’t worth the time!”

“Even after all these centuries, you’ve retained your cruel and unusual love towards me.”

“Gotta have something to keep me going after sleeping alone for five centuries.”

Jeremy shook his head. “You guys are fucking weird.”

* * *

 

The Altar came upon them quite suddenly. It was nothing grand, just the edge of the top of the volcano where he could see several caves leading into the interior. He expected something grander to be honest. If this was the seat of dragons, then shouldn’t there be more fanfare? A little gold? Some gems maybe? Was that too much to ask for?

“You know,” Jeremy said. “I’m a little disappointed.”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “Dragons aren’t really known for their love of architecture. I promise you, though, it’s _way_ cooler on the inside.”

Getting to one of the caves took another three hours of walking. By the time they got there, Jeremy’s fingers were beginning to feel numb. He drank another Heat potion and shivered through the transformation.

Michael was the first to take the lead into the caves. There was a slight spring to his step as he took charge, and Jeremy thought he was enjoying himself.

The tunnel they took was fairly large, large enough for the body of a dragon to pass through. There were claw marks all over the walls. What he thought were pebbles on the ground were actually shimmering scales. Jeremy unabashedly crouched down and grabbed a few, stuffing them inside his satchel for later.

_Fucking dragon scales. Jackpot._

The tunnel eventually widened out, the end of which glowed dimly. They crept forward and soon they entered _the Hoard._

They were in the mouth of the volcano. The hardened cap above them formed the crumbling ceiling, in which gaps filtered in the gray light from the outside, illuminating the piles of gold and gems of all sorts.

There was _so much_ of it. He couldn’t even comprehend the sheer size of the volcano they were in, much less how much gold there was here.

Along the edges of the Hoard were what he assumed were the seats. Crude stone thrones meant more for a lounging body than to be properly sat upon. Each was marked with a different set of runes, indicating that maybe a different dragon was meant to take residence at the seat? A different power perhaps.

“You can study the chicken scratch later, kid,” Geoff whispered, giving him a light push on the back to keep him moving,

“Right. So. What are we looking for?”

“Green balls the size of a closed fist,” Gavin whispered, rather loudly because, well, he had to maintain his distance.

Jeremy once more looked out at the size of the Altar, the size of the Hoard, and felt his stomach plummet. Oh, this was going to take for-fucking-ever.

“Is there an easier way of getting this done?”

“Nope.”

The four of them split up, each slipping and sliding down the piles of gold to look out for any green ball the size of a fist.

He could see his future now. He would live in this Hoard. He would die in this Hoard. He would—

Oh, wait. He could always get Trevor to scout for him.

He took a moment to collect himself and focused on his bond, attempting to ‘call out’ to Trevor and bring him to the Hoard. Thankfully, he wasn’t far and responded quickly to Jeremy. Yes, he would help out. No, he was not going to stick around to see Jeremy potentially kill himself. He had better things to do with his time.

Okay. So maybe Trevor was a bit testy towards him. It was his way of showing his disapproval towards Jeremy complete disregard for his own wellbeing. Well, he was entitled to his feelings, but Jeremy _had_ to do this, and no grumpy Trevor was going to get in his way.

As he climbed over stacks of gold coins and gold bars, he became less concerned with disturbing a mythical sleeping dragon. They were making such an awful racket, too. Nothing could sleep through this. They hadn’t even used any of the potions yet. Maybe they were saving them for the End? Either way, he wasn’t concerned about stepping on something he shouldn’t. In fact, he made as much noise as he damn well pleased.

_Fuck this gold._

_Fuck that ruby._

_Fuck that glittering breastplate._

He was happier when he first entered the Altar, when he didn’t know he had to look through all this by hand. In fact, it was all slightly overwhelming, like from a dream. He couldn’t believe the vast amount of stuff in front of him. How had one dragon collected all of this and no one had stumbled upon it yet? Pillaged, even. Well, the other guys said they had taken some things. But it couldn’t have been much if all this was still here.

Maybe there was a curse to it all. Wasn’t there a saying that dragon treasure was cursed? Maybe that’s why people stayed away from here. Even just a little bit could lead to a comfortable life.

But maybe that was why Geoff, Michael, and Gavin were what they were—cursed because they messed around with a dragon. It was a possibility.

He was nearing the center of the Altar now. There was a higher vantage point there, and maybe from there he could see something other than gold. When he reached the top, he realized there was a strange tower there.

It was a gleaming tower of gold, made out of sturdy square blocks that had obviously been cast in a mold. Upon each block were intricate carvings, etchings of dragons. It was like a story—less like a tower and more like an obelisk, something that held a piece of history, told an important story. He raised a trembling hand to touch the impossibly smooth surface. It was odd to him that the gold blocks felt warm.

He traced the designs,  trying to decipher what it all meant. There were dragons of fire, rising from the ash clouds of volcanic eruptions. Dragons of water, living in the depths of the oceans, their bodies lean and swirling. Dragons of earth, living amongst the trees. Dragons of wind, stretching forth their great wings. Dragons of all types. And then there were what he supposed to be humans—the first witches. Standing there with their hands outstretched, they accepted the gifts the dragons bestowed upon them: the gift of taming magic.

After taking in the gold, Jeremy then noticed the base of the obelisk. It was a rounded rock with rough edges. It kind of reminded him of a meteorite—well, what he supposed would be a meteorite considering he’d only seen pictures of ones. It was a fairly large rock, large enough for the gold blocks to sit on it without fear of falling over. When Jeremy bent to inspect it closer, he found specks of what he believed were amethysts within the ridges of the rough rock. Bits of purple within the obsidian black rock. Again, when he put his hands on it, it gave off heat. Maybe the other guys knew about this tower and what its importance was.

He circled it several times before deciding to continue his search for the pearls. He looked around the tower, hoping some sort of chest would appear and magically all the pearls he would ever need would be there. There wasn’t such a chest, but he did, however, find a lone pearl.

He smiled and picked it up, weighing it in his hand. “All right! Progress!” It was smooth like glass, coloured like the salty seabed near Jeremy’s village—a murky dark green. It felt like a glass paperweight, albeit a bit lighter. He tossed it up into the air and caught it after stowing it safety away in his satchel.

One down. Eight to go.

He slid his way down the pile of gold the tower was erected upon when Trevor decided to fly down and meet up with him. He transformed suddenly, face flushed and eyes wide with worry.

“You need to get out of here,” he said.

“Trev, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Trevor shook his head. “You need to get out of here. _Something_ is here. I can feel it. We need to leave.” He grabbed on to Jeremy’s arm and began to pull him away, pull him back to one of the openings that led them to the Hoard.

“Trev—Trevor, just stop. Just stop.” He pulled Trevor to a half and pulled his arm away. “What is the matter with you right now? Nothing is going to happen. Just give me a bit more time to find the pearls and we’ll leave, okay?”

“ _No,_ ” Trevor said firmly. “We have to _go._ ”

He could see that Trevor was panicked. He had never seen him before like this. Trevor, for the most part, was a carefree individual. Rarely did anything get under his skin.

“Trev—”

Suddenly, there was a loud sound, a sudden burst of air and the shifting of coins.

Jeremy looked back at the pile of gold where the tower lay. Something had become uncovered, a large black snout, the black scales of which had been tinted with gold. And suddenly the pile began to shift and rise up, more gold spilling off in waves as the beast began to rise. Jeremy fell back, staring wide eyed as the dragon unearthed itself from the gold.

It was _big._ Bigger than Jeremy had ever dreamed a dragon could be. There were spikes jutting out all around the back of its head like a jagged crown. Its teeth were easily the size of Jeremy’s arm, coloured an aged yellow ivory in colour. It shook gold and gems loose from its wings and back. The wings were great, extending to points where Jeremy was given a good look at its claws, large, sharp, entirely dangerous.

Along its back were protrusions, like natural armour, running the length of its body all the way down its tail. The dragon sat up on its haunches, stretching its head towards the ceiling of the Altar. And then it opened its eyes.

They were a sharp yellow, like that of a full moon. Jeremy held still as it rolled its head around and began to survey the room.

“ _I smell a witch,_ ” it said, voice low and rumbling, clearer than Jeremy thought a dragon could speak. It bent its neck began sniffling the ground. Jeremy fumbled for his satchel, pulling out two Invisibility potions, tossing one to Trevor and downing the other one himself.

_What would be better? Its sense of smell or sight?_

Jeremy held his breath as the dragon’s head passed over him, blasted by its breath as it sniffed around for him.

“ _I may not be able to see you, but I can_ smell _you._ ” It slammed its claws down next to where Jeremy lay prone.

“ _Hey! That’s our witch! Get your own!_ ” A burst of fire slammed into the dragon’s neck. It hardly seemed bothered by it. But it did turn to face where Michael and the others had first hidden themselves and then jumped out to defend Jeremy.

It worked. The dragon turned away from him, and he was free to run, scrabble his way up the gold and towards the exit.

In order to divert the dragon’s attention, Michael continued to lob fireball after fireball at him, angering the dragon further. “ _Come on, fuck face!_ ”

Meanwhile, Gavin and Geoff were running for the nearest exit, Jeremy (and he hoped Trevor) in hot pursuit.

“What about the other pearls?” he asked.

“Do you have one?” Gavin asked.

“Yeah, but only the one!”

“That’s good enough! Come on!”

They raced back into the tunnel they’d come in through. But instead of going to the outside, Gavin took them down a different path.

“This way!” he said. “We’re almost there. Jeremy, get that Ender pearl ready!”

“What do I do?” He fumbled around with his satchel, pulling out the bag full blaze powder.

“Just shake it around!”

He slipped the pearl into the bag. “What next?”

“Just keep running!”

The shouts of the dragon and of Michael laughing fanatically followed them into the tunnel.

“ _Is that the best you got, you fuck?_ ” The dragon roared in frustration.

Their mad dash through the tunnel seemed to go on forever. It continued to descend, the steps becoming mossy, travel worn from centuries of use. Jeremy slipped several times.

“We’re almost there,” Gavin said, slightly out of breath. “Almost there.”

The stairs came to an end, leading to an open chamber from which sat what Jeremy assumed was the frame for the portal to the End.

“Jerem—where is he?” Geoff asked, whirling around.

“I’m here. Just invisible. The whole dragon thing freaked me out.

“Oh, thank Mother. Okay, all you have to do is slap that pearl into the hole and we’re good to go.”

Jeremy climbed the steps up to the frame. He was surprised to see that the eight other blocks of the frame were full. All he had to do was add one more.

“Wait. You knew about the frame being almost full?” he asked.

“We don’t have time for this, Jeremy,” Gavin said. “Just stick it in!”

He was about to when Michael came barreling down the steps. “Go, go, go!”

“Hang on!” Jeremy said.

A thick mist followed Michael down the steps, swirling around their ankles and seeping into the stones and cracks of the walls. Jeremy pulled out the Eye of Ender from the pouch, hesitating before he put it in the final block as he watched the mist dissipate. Then followed a crack—the stones burst, the cracks growing wider and wider until a bony hand emerged—no, quite literally a hand made of black bone. Following its desperate clawing hand was a skull, lower jaw unhinged—open, _hungry._

More and more of these forms followed.

“Time to go!” Gavin said.

“Yep!”

And Jeremy slipped the final Eye of Ender into the block. The entire frame lit up, filling with a black void spotted with pinpricks of white light. For a moment, Jeremy thought he was looking into the galaxy. The others immediately jumped into the frame, disappearing from sight. Jeremy chanced a look over his shoulder and saw that the skeletons had pulled themselves out from the stones. They were larger than human skeletons should be, at least nine feet tall. And even though their sockets were empty, they all seemed to be looking straight at Jeremy.

He jumped into the portal without a second thought of what could be waiting for him on the other side.


	7. You Should Come With a Warning Label

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally finished writing this monster
> 
> expect better updates

Jeremy landed hard on an obsidian platform, losing the hair from his lungs as well. He rolled onto his back and focused on getting his lungs to work again.

He felt like he was among the stars. Up above him was the sky of the End. There were pinpricks of light twinkling above him like stars. He chanced a look over the edge of the platform he was resting on. He was lying on it in midair. It seemed endless.

Next to the platform was a rising wall, a white chalk cliff with a discernable path leading around and up its length to where it seemed to even out. Like the obsidian platform, the entire land mass seemed to be floating in midair.

“Oh, good,” said Michael. “I can see Jeremy again.”

“Potion must’ve worn off,” Jeremy said, putting a hand to his chest out of reflex when he couldn’t feel Trevor’s side of the bond.

“Oh shit,” he said. “Trevor. I have to go back. I have to get him.” He left him alone with a dragon was what he did. He looked around for a portal frame but saw nothing. It was like they had materialized here out of nothing. “How do we get back?”

“Take it easy, kid,” Geoff said. “Your bird friend is going to be fine.”

But this wasn’t like last time. The Invisibility potion would only last so long. He was defenceless against a dragon.

“Come on,” Geoff said, bending to help Jeremy up and onto his feet with a gentle hand. “We have to keep moving. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we go home and get Trevor back, all right?”

Jeremy nodded shakily. “Okay.”

He had to trust Geoff here. He knew what he was doing, what this place was, and, more importantly, how to get out.

They crept their way silently along the cliffs. Every rock Jeremy dislodged with his foot made a sound too loud for this environment. Everything was quiet. There was no sign of life here. It was like they existed in a void. His breath was loud in his ears. He experienced a sense of vertigo whenever he looked over the edge.

“What happens if we fall?” he asked.

“You go back to the portal,” Michael said. “Honestly, getting in and out of the End is easier than the Nether. But I wouldn’t jump if I were you. We should wait until those wither fucks clear out.”

“Those what?”

“Those black skeleton things. They’re called withers. Don’t know what they are, but they’re nasty. Poisonous as shit, too.”

“Venomous,” Gavin said.

Michael turned to look over his shoulder at him. “What?”

“Technically, withers are venomous. See, it’s poisonous if you eat it. But it’s venomous if it bites you. Withers are venomous not poisonous.”

“Why are you such a fucking nerd?”

“Guys,” Geoff said in a loud whisper. He raised a finger to his lips and crept up to the edge of the cliff formation. He beckoned them all closer, and Jeremy rose up to look over the edge and see what he was facing.

There were several obsidian towers in the distance, twelve of them in total, set up in a circle. They surrounded a pit which Geoff said was their way out of here. “It’s safer than just jumping off the edge. Now, what you really have to watch out for is the endermen.” He pointed to a shrouded figure in the distance.

It was tall, over ten feet, maybe twelve. Rail thin, dressed in a wispy black garment with a hood. Then he saw others, more of them all over the place. They did nothing but stand there, silent figures with heads slightly bowed. It was eerie.

“Why are they just standing there?” he asked.

“Don’t know,” Geoff said. “Just one more thing. They don’t do much, just don’t attack them and don’t look them in the eyes.”

“Why not?”

Geoff shrugged. “Never really knew the answer to that one. Now, come on. I think there’s a princess in a tower somewhere that _really_ wants to get out.” He pushed himself over the edge, and the others made to follow him.

They crossed the plain to the towers briskly but with a high degree of caution. They passed by the silent endermen, haunting as they stood there lifelessly. Were they even alive? Jeremy broke away from the group to get a good look at one. It had no eyes, no face to make it seem anymore human. Its long fingered hands were lax at its side. He stretched out a hand—

“Jeremy!” Gavin hissed.

He jerked back and went back to the group.

“So, you’re sure Ryan was thrown in here?” Michael asked. “Because I don’t see him.”

“Oh, he’s here,” Gavin said. “I remember when they shoved him in and broke the portal. He should be here . . .” Gavin turned his head every which way, as if searching for a sign—a shred of humanity. But there was nothing. There was but silence and the void beyond the white cliffs.

“Towers,” Jeremy said. “They’ve got cages on top of them.”

Michael looked to Gavin. “You don’t think he’s . . .”

“Oh, yeah,” Geoff said. “He is. Come on. These towers aren’t going to climb themselves.”

“Wait, you mean—” Jeremy said.

“Yep,” Gavin said. “We’re going to look through every damn tower until we find him.”

“But how are we going to get all the way up there?”

“Simple. Take a ladder!”

As it turned out, there were ladders set deep within the stone of the towers. Convenient.

He climbed the rungs, pacing himself as it was a long way up to the top. Within the iron cage at the top was a purple flame and above it hovered a large white crystal. It spun in a slow circle, glistening from the purple flame below. He reached through the bars of the cage to touch the flame. It swirled over his fingertips  without burning him. He reached up to touch the crystal, smooth like glass.

But there was nothing else here for him.

He climbed back down and moved to another tower. The same thing was there for him. A cage, a flame, a crystal, no human.

Upon the third tower, he found a man. Slumped against one side of the cage he appeared to be dead. The veins on one side of his face, stretching down to his neck, and spreading down through his arm were black. Maybe he was decaying, some type of necromantic magic.

Jeremy stood up on the edge of the platform and whistled loudly. “Hey!” he shouted, waving an arm up in the air. “I found something!” He teetered over along the narrow edge to were the man was slumped. He reached through the bars and touched the man’s shoulder. “Hey. Hey, pal. Come on. Wake up.”

The man did not move. Jeremy shook him harder. Michael was the first to climb the tower. “He’s not waking up,” he said.

Michael crouched down next the cage. “Ryan!” he said in a relieved tone. “Oh, Mother. He’s not waking up. We have to get him out of there.”

“What if he’s tethered to this crystal thing? Like you were with the cage in the Nether? Maybe that’s keeping him asleep. Can you melt the bars or something?”

“I can try.” Michael held onto the bars and his hands began to glow hot red. They began to melt around him, and once a hole was big enough for Jeremy to squeeze through, he stepped aside.

Once he was next to the crystal, he put his hands on it, trying to figure out its dimensions and its purpose in keeping the man—Ryan—asleep. He tried stamping out the flame with his foot, but that didn’t seem to do anything. The flame was immune to any type of stamping or water dousing. Maybe he should turn to the crystal. What if he broke it?

“Hey, Michael, can I see your sword?”

“Sure thing.” He unsheathed his sword and handed it to Jeremy through the hole.

Now, he’d never wielded a sword before, but he knew the logistics of it. He held the hilt firmly with both hands and swung it against the crystal. It struck hard. Pieces of it flaked off when he yanked the sword out for a second blow. He struck it again. Its brilliant glow flickered. He struck it again and again, each time with more force, until he carved right through it. And then it exploded in front of him.

He slammed back against the iron bars of the cage. Black spots crowded his vision. He couldn’t hear anything but a sharp ringing. There was pain in his back, in his chest. He was afraid he’d cracked the back of his skull. He felt behind him and pulled away bloodstained fingertips.

_Ow._

Several things happened after the crystal shard had broken. The first was that the purple flames had gone out. Second, Ryan had begun to wake up. Third, the _other_ endermen had begun to wake up. And fourth, something else had awoken—something very large and something very angry.

Jeremy turned his hazy vision to where Michael was pulling Ryan out through the hole of the cage. He slung the larger man’s arms around his neck and hoisted him onto his back before backtracking to the ladder. Just before he went down, he looked up at Jeremy. “I’ll be back for you.” And down he went with a half conscious man on his back.

Jeremy cradled his head in his hands, groaning as the pounding continued in his head. He was looking out over the edge of the tower, looking down at the centrepiece the towers surrounded. It was rounded, the shape of which reminded Jeremy of a bird’s nest—the concave bottom in which another dragon rested upon.

It wasn’t as menacing as the first dragon had met. While sharing the same black scales, the dragon’s eyes were purple. There was no gold tinting any part of its body, and when it opened its mouth, he saw flickering purple flames.

It seemed to be still sluggish, moving slowly and taking its time in stretching, shifting around in the nest. When it rose up, its roar was more _soulful_ than the angry growls that the other dragon emanated in the Altar. It rose up on its hind legs, buffeted its wings and took off into the sky. It grasped onto each tower, searching it ruthlessly until it came to Jeremy’s.

With its head turned to the side, Jeremy was fixed by a wide eyed gaze. Now that he was closer to the dragon, he could see that it wasn’t entirely black. Some of its scales were a dark purple, some of wide caught the light and glinted at him. It would’ve been beautiful had he not been terrified and in too much pain to think straight.

The dragon looked panicked, not angry like the first one. It saw that the crystal had been destroyed and that Ryan had been taken. It bit at the cage, trying to tear a larger hole in it to get at Jeremy. Jeremy crept backwards. Movement from his peripheries dragged his attention downwards where he saw three others jump into the gap that separated the nest from the rest of the centrepiece. First Gavin. Then Geoff with a limpid Ryan.

_They were abandoning him . . ._

The dragon, with one pull, pulled the iron cage free from the tower. It looked down upon him, not moving to strike at him or eat him. But simply looking, studying, understanding.

There was a bright flash of light, and suddenly Michael was there, materializing out of a column of flame. “Okay,” he said. “This is going to hurt, but hang on!” He picked Jeremy up underneath his legs and shoulders and then it was like they were flying, but it was only because Michael had tapped into his blaze half and used his abilities to speed them away from the dragon and towards the portal out of here.

It would’ve been fun if Jeremy weren’t currently being burned alive. But combine that with the head trauma and it was lights out in an instant.

* * *

 

The boat was gentle rocking in the water, the waves lapping against the sides of it gently. Jeremy was turned onto his stomach. There was a crick in his neck and heat on his back. He opened his eyes briefly. There was a man huddled in blankets a few feet from him. The man looked at him with tired eyes, one blue, the other purple, and blankets pulled up to his nose. Eventually he closed them and burrowed down even further.

A sudden surge of pain coursed down his back. Jeremy tensed and hissed, shutting his eyes. “Ow.”

“Hey!” Michael said. “He’s awake.”

“Oh, thank Mother,” Gavin said. “Thought we lost you there, Lil J.”

Jeremy frowned. “Little?”

“Yeah! ‘Cause you’re so little, you know?”

“If I weren’t in so much pain, I’d be a lot more offended.”  He opened his eyes again. “How did we get back to the boat?”

“Ryan teleported us here,” Geoff said.

“He what?”

“You know. Teleport. Endermen can just blink from one place to another. Seeing as Ryan is half enderman, we got him to take us to the boat. Poor guy was pretty out of it already. I imagine he’ll sleep until we get back to the tower.”

“Right, so who is this guy we just picked up?”

“That’s Ryan,” Gavin said. “Psychic witch. Good with potions, too. Portals, crafting. You name it. He was brilliant back in the day. Wrote a few books as well I think. You got those kicking around in the tower, don’t you, Geoff?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so.”

“Great. I think Jeremy would get a real kick out of them.”

Meanwhile, Michael hovered over Jeremy, dousing his back with a Healing potion.

Jeremy winced as it tried to repair his burnt skin. “Hey. Take it easy with that stuff.”

“Sorry.” Michael then attempted to dap at him with the potion, which definitely helped.

“So how bad is it?”

“Well, you’re pretty burned on your back. You got a good sized bump on the back of your head, and I totally had to pull out a few pieces of crystal shard from your chest. They weren’t deep, though. And I kept them if you wanted to see them.” Michael placed a small jar in front of Jeremy with the said crystal shards.

“Sweet.”

Michael finished patching Jeremy up so he was able to roll onto his back. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but there was a definite pull to his skin. He looked down to his chest, which was swathed in rolls of bandages. The wounds were hardly more than skin deep, but they still bled through the white cotton.

Oh, Trevor was going to be _pissed_ when he saw him.

Speaking of which, where was he?

“Has Trevor stopped by at all?” he asked.

No one replied.

_Not good, not good, not good._

With some difficulty, he sat up and rummaged around for a map. He bit into his thumb, wincing at the sharp pain until he bled and let the blood bleed out onto the map. He drew a location sigil at the bottom with the blood and watched the droplets curve their way across the map until they stopped at the location of the ruins.

“Oh, thank Mother.” He sighed in relief and rubbed his face. “He should be at the ruins.” He laid down on his back again. “I can’t wait to get back home and for things to get back to normal.”

“What do you mean?” Geoff asked.

“Well, I mean. I did this for potions. I didn’t expect to start jumping through portals every day and waking up fucking dragons. _Shit._ I just want to go back to making potions.”

“But making potions is boring!”

“Yeah! To you, maybe. I like potions. I’m a potions witch. What did you think was going to happen after you got all your buddies together? I’ve got my own shit to do.”

Geoff, now sitting up and giving Jeremy a confused look, turned to a softer note of tone, “You’ve been a real sport about everything. Really. I just thought that maybe you’d like to stick around for a while. There’s still a lot I could offer you, I think.” His brows furrowed as they often did when he was trying to remember something but couldn’t.

Seeing Geoff struggle, Gavin decided to pitch in. “He’s got tonnes of books I think you’d find interesting. And who knows what Ryan’s got stashed away. I’m pretty sure he had secret bases all over the place.”

“Why did he have secret bases?”

Gavin shrugged. “Got up to weird stuff in his spare time. I swear he had a cache of weapons hidden wherever we went. Always had our backs.”

“Yep,” Geoff said. “And now we have his.” He looked over the bundle of blankets where Ryan was hidden.

“Poor guy,” Michael said. “Trapped in that place with those _things._ ”

“What’s the deal with those endermen anyway?” Jeremy asked. “They didn’t seem so bad when we were there.”

“That’s because they were asleep,” Gavin said. “When you broke that shard, it must’ve woken up the dragon. And then they all followed. Including Ryan.”

“Yeah, but what are they? What’s their deal?”

“Well, that dragon was their mother, right? They’re all interconnected. It’s why when you attack one, thinking it’s alone, that others come out of nowhere to defend it.”

“That’s why you shouldn’t look it directly in the eyes either,” Michael said. “That’s how they get in your head. Look them in the eyes and that’s, like, their form of verbal permission into letting them look in your head. It’s not fun.”

“And now Ryan’s got about a thousand of them all chattering about in that head of his, poor guy,” Gavin said.

Since they were on the topic of their half nature, Jeremy decided to seize his chance and figure out what was going on. “What’s it like being half monster anyway?”

“Fucking sucks,” Geoff said. “I’m losing a bit of my mind every day and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“Little more monster each day, right, lads?” Gavin said, his tone humorous but bitter. He looked away when he said it.

“Is there anything you can do to stop it?” he asked. “A spell that can slow the progress? Or reverse it?”

“Kid, if we found something to fix us in the thousand years we’ve been like this, we would’ve,” Geoff said. He was looking at his hands, looking at the skin that was green and mottled from the decaying process.

“Besides,” Michael added. “Can’t do any spells the way we are. All the magic got ripped out of us when we were cursed.”

“What was that like?” he asked softly.

“Like something was trying to pull out my teeth.”

Jeremy asked no more of the subject, and they spent the rest of the journey back to the ruins in relative silence.

* * *

 

When they landed at the fortress, Geoff and Michael carried the still sleeping Ryan into the ruins, blankets and all, before settling him down in front of the fire place. Jeremy moved slowly in and dumped his stuff. He found Trevor huddling on the spot he’d first claimed as his bed. He was still in his crow form. His feathers were ruffled, his tail singed. He looked exhausted, half dead from flying away from an angry dragon while Jeremy had just abandoned him. Again.

“Hey, buddy,” he said softly. He brought his hand down against him, intending to stroke him and make him feel better, but Trevor was incredibly angry with him. He pecked at his hands, squawking loudly at him and making him feel even worse about the current situation. He pulled his hand back. “Yeah. Yeah. I get it. Save the lecture for later and let me help you.”

Trevor let himself be picked up without any more fuss. Trevor combed over his feathers, pulling out the loose ones when Trevor spread his wings. His flight feathers were badly singed, which meant he would be flightless for a few days, and it made sense as to why he wasn’t human at the moment. When he was hurt in one form, he couldn’t transform into the other. At least that meant Jeremy had a few days before being chewed out by an angry Trevor.

After seeing that the minor burns were treated and that Trevor had some access to food and water, they curled up on Jeremy’s bed together, Trevor a solid weight on Jeremy’s chest. It was nice to be back again, to be able to sleep and not worry that a dragon was coming to eat him. He felt safe here despite the people he lived with. He was already thinking of Geoff’s offer, of living here and studying here from the books he had and learning what exactly? What did Geoff have in store for him.

“ _—he’s going to find out one day. He’s not dumb.”_

The voices carried over from the far end of the fortress, its impressive size making the perfect echo chamber. Maybe they thought him to be asleep.

 _“He’s not, but if he knows the truth, he won’t want to help us. And we need him. Just stick to the plan. We’ll get through this._ ”

Jeremy stroked Trevor’s back.

Looked like he was definitely staying now, especially if they had plans for him. Just _what_ exactly?

_Haven’t I ever told you that you were too curious for your own good?_

Yes, but now’s not the time.

_Whatever helps you sleep at night, buddy._


	8. A Minute Closer to Doomsday

There were four of them now, four figures of myth and legend.

Geoff, the God.

Michael, the Warrior.

Gavin, the Jester.

And Ryan, the Scientist.

That left Jack, the Builder, in the basement, silent and still as ever, Geoff refusing to activate him and give everyone here a clear answer as to what happened.

After a tiring journey of to and from the End, they did little the first few days they were back. Most of it was trying to convince Ryan to leave the security of the blanket nest he had constructed around himself.

Jeremy was watching them from up above in one of the many holes in the fortress walls. Really, he was watching while he sat beside Gavin. Gavin had been strangely quiet and absent since they had arrived here. He was keeping a considerable amount of distance while Geoff and Michael took care of Ryan. Since Jeremy thought he’d be more of a hindrance than help down there, he joined Gavin.

“What was Ryan like before this?” he asked.

“Oh, he was one of the smartest people I knew. He was a bit of a recluse when we first met him. Didn’t like people. Preferred magic to socializing. He’s a psychic witch, you know. Could create truth potions and slip them to people in their drinks to get the truth out of them. He knew ’sayerspeech, too.”

“What’s that?”

“A very uncommon type of speech that only physic witches have a knack for. Really, all it is is just regular speech but magic laid over top of the words. He could make you do things you didn’t want to do. It was like walking around in a haze.”

Jeremy looked to Gavin and saw him smiling a little. “You sound like you know what it feels like.”

“I guess I do,” Gavin said with a shrug. There was a fond look on his face. “When he first started working for Geoff, I think I pissed him off. I mean, by the time we met him, he was _really_ well known for the things he could do with potions, and his reputation for being a spy.  Pay him the right amount and he could dig up anything for you. Anyway, I was so intrigued by him, and Geoff told me to stay away from him, to let him settle in, but I didn’t listen—never listened—but I just, I don’t know, I wanted to know him. He had that whole dark and mysterious look about him, you feel me?”

Jeremy nodded.

“Anyway, I sort of broke into his house just because I wanted to know him a bit more. He was there, wasn’t happy about it, and cranked up the ’sayerspeech to eleven. Next thing I know I’m on a boat headed off the continent. It took me three weeks to get back home!” Jeremy started to laugh. “It’s not funny!” Although, the smirk on Gavin’s face would say he found it comical, too. “Anyway, when I got back home, I made things right with Ryan. See, he doesn’t like people not because he thinks the worst of them, but that he couldn’t control his powers when he was younger. He was always slipping into ’sayerspeech when he was a kid. Caused more harm than good. Decided to isolate himself for the good of everyone. He didn’t like getting close to anyone, but once he felt like he had a place here, he opened up and it was . . . _amazing._ He’s so smart. I think you’d like him, Lil J.”

Jeremy looked down at where Michael and Geoff were. Michael was sat down next to Ryan’s nest, Geoff standing over him protectively. Whatever they were saying seemed to work, for Ryan extended a hand, the first time Jeremy had seen him move voluntarily. He gripped onto Michael’s hand and did nothing more. Progress, but still. It was clear to him that Ryan wasn’t the same man Gavin had told him about.

“What drew you guys all to Geoff in the first place? Jeremy asked. “What kind of guy is he—or was he?”

“Geoff was . . .” Gavin breathed out deeply. He propped up his head in his palm. Curled over like this, he looked exhausted, older beyond his age with too many years gone by in agony. “Geoff was brilliant. There’s no other way to put it. He was already well known by the time I came around. He had a brilliant mind, too. Great thinker. The things he planned to do . . . it was amazing. Earth witch, right? So he learned how to _move mountains._ ” Gavin looked to Jeremy with a grin on his face. “He built a whole city by himself. Well, Jack helped with the architectural part, but _still._ This whole grand city with libraries and watch towers and walls and this.” He swept his hands over the expanse of the ruins. “It was mind blowing what he was able to do on his own. He built a city for the people, for the witches who felt they were too contained by the magical institutes in other cities. Here they could study and practice what they wanted without fear of being told off.

“And it wasn’t just here that Geoff had profound effects. He would take us all over the world, show us how far magic could be taken. He challenged us to go as far as we could with our abilities. I think that’s what he wanted for us in the end. He wanted us to see how great we could truly be.” The smile fell from Gavin’s face. He was looking down at the three on the floor. Michael was slowly urging Ryan to sit up. “I hate seeing him like this.”

“Who? Ryan?”

Gavin shook his head. “No. Geoff. I know it’s killing him on the inside to be losing so much. When I left him the first time after all of this happened, he was starting to forget who I was. Not really who I _was,_ but who I had become to him. He just saw me as that apprenticeship kid that managed to turn a wooden house into stone purely by chance. Like I was the most annoying and fascinating thing he’d ever seen. Only he saw the annoying part, got mad at me a lot. And I just couldn’t take it after that, not after what happened with Jack. I just couldn’t see him losing himself, not when I was losing him too. So I left.”

“How long do you think you have left?  Until you go full . . . monster.”

Gavin sighed and pulled up the sleeves on his arms. Jeremy was surprised to see that they were nearly covered in the skin of a creeper. “Can’t tell. They didn’t exactly put a time stamp on this curse deal. But if you look at Geoff? I’d say we don’t have long.”

* * *

 

Trevor was healing, albeit slowly. It seemed burns from dragon fire took longer to heal. Jeremy jotted the observation down in his notebook. But now Trevor was up and cleaning his feathers, splashing around in the makeshift birdbath Jeremy had built for him. He was still a bit angry, preferring to nip and peck at Jeremy and buffet his wings in annoyance. He didn’t trust any of the others in the ruins with him, scaring off the others whenever they wanted to talk to Jeremy.

So he was feeling overprotective. Jeremy understood. Sort of. He obviously wasn’t picking up on anything that a familiar could, but he understood why Trevor was acting this way. He wanted to keep Jeremy safe, but Jeremy was capable of making his own decisions, thank you very much. He could judge these people without a chatty familiar hanging on his shoulder.

Besides, he was probably irritable from not being able to change in a few days. He was probably itching to get going again.

Maybe he should take Trevor away from here for a while, tell him to go off and do what he wanted for a while. Maybe he needed some time away from this place. Surely, there wasn’t something he needed to worry about here still. Jeremy was safe here. No one was coming to get him. Hopefully Trevor could see that.

Ryan was starting to become more lucid now. He was actually up and walking, looking at the fortress ruins like he’d never seen them before. He was a very large but quiet man, broad shoulders, long overgrown hair that one of the others had tied back for him. But he moved with the smooth grace of a cloister witch. It was unnerving to look at him, though. But only because one of his eyes was like that of an enderman, piercing purple, cat like pupil. He’d taken up to wearing an improvised eyepatch, something about how he didn’t want the _others_ from seeing.

The other endermen, Jeremy supposed, because what else could he be talking about?

“So you’re the potions witch,” Ryan said when he caught Jeremy alone.

Jeremy was sifting through Geoff’s books, looking for something historical, possibly about the city that was once here. Shit out of luck so far. “Uh, yeah. And you’re the guy with the thing. The eye thing.”

Ryan’s lip twitched like he wanted to smile but possibly forgot how to. “Yeah. The eye thing.” He sat down on one of the crates next to Jeremy. His hands twitched at his sides. “Could I, uh, ask you of something?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“I want to look through your eyes?”

Jeremy didn’t know how to respond to that.

“It’s, uh,” Ryan fumbled for words. “It’s a thing that I do to look through people’s memories. Your mind’s eye, really. I just . . . I need to know what I’ve been missing. I’ve looked through the other guys, but Geoff’s mind is too deteriorated, Michael’s is a huge blank, and I can’t get close to Gavin. So . . .”

“I’m not sure how much help I can be. I’ve only known Geoff for, like, two? Three months?”

Ryan sighed. “That’s fine. I just need some recent stuff.”

Jeremy thought about the potential ramifications of letting someone else into his head and thought it’d be beneficial for Ryan to catch up on some of the parts he’d missed out on. “Okay. So how’s this done exactly?”

“I need to put my hands on you. I’ll say a few words and then gain access to your memories. I’ll only look at the ones while you were here. That I can guarantee.”

“All right.” Jeremy shifted until he was sitting straight across from Ryan. “Let’s do this.”

“Okay.” Ryan lifted his hands and set them on either side of Jeremy’s face. He looked at him with his one good eye and whispered the words, “ _And I shall see that which you have seen._ ” Immediately his one eye went cloudy and Jeremy found himself no longer in the fortress but looking at his own memories through a different gaze. Like he was the audience and not the creator.

Certain scenes were drawn out longer than others. They centered around Geoff, around Michael, around Gavin, around the fortress. Others would be glanced at but given no consideration. Except for one with Gus. Ryan seemed to pause on one of the countless memories Jeremy had of his old boss, sitting there on the porch of the potion’s stand.

And then it was all gone. Jeremy blinked and he found himself back in the ruins. Ryan had his hands clasped, braced on his thighs.

“Who was that man?” he asked. “The one who looked grumpy with the cat.”

“Oh, that’s Gus. He’s sort of my old boss? I’m not actually sure what he was. The point is—”

“Gus,” Ryan repeated.

“Yeah. That’s his name.”

Ryan blinked. “He looks familiar.”

Jeremy didn’t know how to respond to that.

“It’s . . . it’s probably nothing.” Ryan stood up and swept off.

“Nice talking to you,” Jeremy said, but Ryan was long gone by then.

* * *

 

“Hey, so I’m thinking of heading out for a few days. Nothing personal, but I need to do some external research about some things. Potion related. You know how it is.”

Jeremy was standing beside Geoff and Michael. They were going over the portal grimoire with Michael reading it to Geoff. For whatever reason, Jeremy wasn’t concerned with, but he needed to do some things, things he could only do in a properly funded library.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Geoff said quickly, beckoning Jeremy to sit down beside him. “Don’t care. Take a look at this.” Michael passed the book over to Jeremy. It was opened to the last portal in the book, the Aether.

“What’s this all about?”  he asked.

“The Aether,” Geoff said, with an abnormal amount of giddiness in his voice. “That’s the last place we need to go to.”

“Why are we going to the Aether? And what is the Aether?”

“The Aether’s said to have regenerative and healing properties. It was once thought of as the Garden of the Gods. Where the rivers ran with the elixir of life!”

“And how do you know about all this?”

“From what Michael’s been reading me, it jogged my memory a bit.” But Geoff waved him off. “Anyway, _that’s_ where we need to go.” He tapped the picture of the Aether portal in the book. It had a gold speckled frame with a blue entrance way.

“All right. So why do you want to go there?”

“Haven’t you been listening? Regenerative properties! It might not be a cure, but it might slow the process of what we’re going through. And who knows what might be on the other side for you. Garden of the Gods here, Jeremy. It’s not like the Nether or the End. It’s full of everything. _That’s_ where we’re going to go. When you’ve done what you need to, we can start looking at how to build it. Sound like a plan?”

Jeremy looked at the plans. _To create a portal to the Aether, one must construct the frame out of glowstone and pouring a bucket of water within the frame itself._

All right. What was glowstone, and how could he get his hands on some?

Small fish, Jeremy. Small fish here.

“Okay. I’m going to mull this over for a while. I’m just going to head back home for a while and do some things, all right?”

“All right. Head out. Have fun.”

“Yep.”

He left the ruins with Trevor on his shoulder. Gavin wished him a fond farewell when they crossed paths in the forest.

And then he was off, taking the old paths in the forest back to civilization. Now that he knew more about this area, he was starting to see old formations of buildings in the brush. Empty windows and doorways, crumbling walls, old stone pathways. There could be more, so much more this forest was hiding from him.

He thought back to what Gavin had said, what Geoff had offered all of them. He believed they deserved the world, and he gave it to them. And now he was doing the same for Jeremy. Somehow he had picked up on Jeremy’s lack of stimulation and decided to give him a challenge. In a sense, Jeremy was like one of them, one of the witches Geoff saw promise in and wanted to push how far they could go.

How far could he take Jeremy? What more could he offer him? Jeremy wanted to see this through. This was what he had been searching for for years. Some purpose. Some excitement. Some damn adventure. With Geoff he could see the world. This was where he needed to be.

And hopefully the others wanted him to be there, too.

* * *

 

“No,” was the first word Trevor said when he transformed back into his human form.

“Wh-what do you mean ‘no’?”

Trevor resolutely crossed his arms and shook his head. “You are not going back there.” Jeremy rolled his eyes. “I’m serious! You stole from their library!”

“I doubt they even remember me!”

“You say that now, but I bet you the first thing we’re going to see when we get into town is your face on a bunch of water potions.”

“That’s why I’ve got this!” Jeremy pulled out a potion bottle from his satchel. “Glamour potion, dude. I’ve got this.”

“They have magical wards on the entrances. It’ll peel off the Glamour no problem.”

“Yeah, in the more restrictive sections. I’m just interested in the history stuff. No need to worry about wards!”

“If this goes tits up, I get to say ‘I told you so’ when we’re locked up.”

“Deal.”

Nomina was bustling as always. The library was busy with those coming and going, witches and orderlies alike. Jeremy had guzzled down the Glamour potion as soon as he saw the city gates. Mixed some ingredients from an Endurance potion, and he hoped the Glamour would last until he left. Trevor would not be joining him, preferring to stay far from the library and the Sisters that had nearly imprisoned them both some months ago.

The history section was one of the largest sections in the library, for obvious reasons. It spanned two floors of the building. This was where a lot of orderlies studied. They always seemed interested in studying the past and current events. Witches didn’t care about the past. They were always focused on the present and where it could lead them in the future. But orderlies looked to the past to learn and remember. They found the past interesting, and in some regards could help them in the present.

Today Jeremy was here to look for historical geographical texts and to see if he could find out anything on a city that was built in a _day._

He had to go back _far_ into the past. He was dealing with a thousand years of history. It would take a while to find those tomes and parchments. He found old maps and took a few to a table he had marked off for himself. He compared them to increasingly modern maps and saw the spot where the ruins once were. There were major roads marked through it, but as time went on, the roads changed. They avoided the area entirely, curving around it, sending people the long way. Further research showed that the roads changed because of nesting creepers. It was their habitat, and they needed to be left undisturbed. A feasible answer, but Jeremy knew there had to be more than that.

He found old stories of cartographers and thrill seekers writing books filled with sketches and their own personal anecdotes on the things they saw. Apparently, quite a few people had gone through the same ruins Jeremy was now living in.

. . . _The tower is the most notable feature of the landscape. The surviving ruins are at least sixty feet tall, forty feet in width, and another sixty feet in length. Scans of the area show that the tower used to be taller, much taller in fact. There are fallen segments of the tower all around the area. It is unknown how tall the tower was at one point. . . ._

_. . . Shown here in figure two is the symbol most commonly found in the area known as the Achievement Citadel. It is a five pointed star with a sword cutting through its middle. It was possibly used as a brand to mark shipping crates and armour. The symbol can also be found over pre-existing archways. . . ._

_. . . When we look at the old roadways, we see that they are quite large. They were dual carriage roadways, which suggests a large amount of traffic into the city. At one point this place was once a bustling market and institutional centre. Considering its landlocked position, the only way into the city was by carriage, and small ferry boats down the river. Whatever drew the people here had to have been a lot to make such a long journey by land. . . ._

_. . . It would not be a complete book to talk of the curse on the land. It wasn’t a band of creepers that moved in a chased everyone away. No. It was something deeper and more powerful. If we compare the timelines of when the Achievement Citadel was abandoned and when the dragons fell into the Eternal Sleep, we see an overlap. It is hard not to think that the two events are related. The Citadel was at its height when it was suddenly destroyed and abandoned. There can be only one explanation as to the destruction the city faced: dragons. There must’ve been a reason for the dragons to come down upon the citadel, and after which the Citadel was left, the dragons took their slumber. . . ._

There was so much there for Jeremy to look at that he didn’t know what to believe in.

But he had to admit: the Achievement Citadel? What kind of name was _that_?

Unfortunately, all the books he looked through had no names. No mentions of Geoff or Michael or Gavin or Ryan. Nothing about the God, the Warrior, the Jester, or the Scientist. It was as if they never existed. The books never mentioned a leader of the city, any local orders, any people of note that had visited. It was like it existed but wasn’t important to fully remember. It just wasn’t something people seemed interested in. Which was weird considering the theories people came up with to explain it. But they were just theories in the end. Not taken seriously. Printed and shelved immediately, never to be considered.

He’d decided that he had enough and decided to gather some supplies before he left town and before his Glamour wore out. He plodded down the stairs, hardly looking where he was going in case one of the Sisters recognized him through his Glamour, when he bumped into someone as soon as he reached the landing.

“Omph! Sorry about that! Wasn’t looking where I was going.” When he looked up at the stranger, he saw Gus looking back at him. Jeremy blinked. “Well, have a good day then.”

“I know it’s you, you idiot,” Gus said. He tapped his glasses when Jeremy paused in front of him. He must’ve charmed them to see through spell work. “That and your bird friend is around. What are you doing here? You haven’t been back to the stand in weeks. I actually had to talk to a customer.”

“Oh no,” Jeremy said, deadpanned. “How terrible. How did you survive.”

“Don’t give me that. You’re the one who decided to go off into the forest and live as a hermit.” Gus frowned down at him, looking suspicious. “What are you doing with your time anyway?”

“I told you. Potions and stuff.”

“Yeeaahhh. Not buying it.”

“Look, Gus. I appreciate the concern, but I’m on my own now. I’m doing what I want to do.”

Gus gave him an even odder look. “Yeah. I don’t know what type of parental imaginings you’re projecting onto me right now? But you should probably watch out for yourself and for Trevor. Strange things are happening. I’m sure you’ve probably heard of it.”

“Uhhh. Forest hermit, remember?”

“Right. Well, _something_ woke up in the mountains and now there are reports of endermen all of the country. Don’t panic,” Gus said, trying to placate him. “They don’t do anything. I’m pretty sure you can pick up some sort of informational pamphlet outside, I don’t know. The point is. Things are happening. Watch out.”

Jeremy nodded. “Good talking to you, Gus. Say. What are you doing here? This is the first time I’ve ever seen you leave the stand. For a while, I actually thought someone cursed you so you could never leave it.”

“Yeah, well—”

“Gus.”

Jeremy turned around at the voice of the newcomer. On the landing above him was a tall, blonde woman. She was dressed like a warrior, all metal and leather, with a black fur throw over her shoulders. “Meeting’s about to start,” she said.

“Yeah, coming,” Gus said. He fixed Jeremy with a pointed look that was hard to discern before mounting the stairs and following the woman further up into the library.

On his way out, Jeremy made sure to grab one of those pamphlets on the endermen.

Just what did he bring into this world?

* * *

 

“Hey, so, when I went into town, they were passing out these pamphlets on the endermen?” Jeremy handed the piece of paper to Michael. “I thought endermen stayed in the End, you know?”

“Well, that’s where they spawn,” Michael said. “Doesn’t mean they can’t leave the house every once in a while.”

“It means the portal is still activated,” Geoff said. “It’s like leaving an open door. When it was broken, they couldn’t pass through between realms, but now they can because we let them.”

“Is that a bad thing or a good thing? I can’t tell.”

Geoff and Michael both shrugged. “Depends on how you look at them,” Geoff said. “They’re mostly benign. Won’t attack unless you do. Besides, they used to be all around when we were  . . . you know, doing witchy stuff. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“And the dragon?” Jeremy asked. “What about that?”

Geoff turned on Michael immediately. “What? Don’t give me that look! I forgot, okay?”

“I have half a working brain right now. You need to tell remind me of the important stuff.”

“I was distracted with the mission at hand! You know, rescuing Ryan?”

“Yeah! But you forgot to mention the _teeny tiny_ mother fucking dragon!”

“Okay, okay!” Jeremy said, cutting them both off. “Just calm down. Just, do we have to be worried about the dragon?”

“If it hasn’t made an appearance yet,” Geoff said. “Then we should be okay. Who knows? Maybe it went back to sleep.”

“You sound really reassuring right now,” Jeremy said. “Anyway, I’m going to go put my stuff away. You guys can go on and talk about the good old days or whatever it is that you do when I’m not around.”

“You’re the best, Lil J,” Michael called out.

“I don’t appreciate the moniker. Thanks.”

* * *

 

So here were the facts.

Jeremy had met four individuals cursed with monstrous qualities. They were old and they were powerful. They had all told him bits of their stories. How Geoff had gathered them together, given them the world. How they jumped through portals. How they built this city and made it one of the greatest places in the world. How they angered something. Something powerful and were cursed because of it. How they were torn apart until Jeremy stumbled along and helped pull them together.

What he had to know now was what _really_ pulled them apart in the first place.

He had an idea of what to do, of how to get the answers he needed. There was one more key figure missing from this puzzle.

He first checked to see what they were all doing, to see if they were all occupied. He told Trevor what he was planning on doing, telling him to watch out of him and trip a signal in case someone was coming after him.

He saw Ryan and Gavin together in the crumbing arena where Jeremy had first met Gavin. It seemed like they were trying to reconnect to one another. And by reconnecting, he meant endlessly teasing each other about how the other looked.

“You look like a frog decided to have sex with a snake,” Ryan said, looking at the creeper scales on Gavin’s arms.

“Yeah? Well, it looks like your eye decided to have an affair with a grape. And it looks like it got messy.”

Ryan laughed. “Messy? How?”

“Oh, you know. Lots of emotional baggage. The grape had three kids without telling the eye, and now the eye feels like it’s committed to something.”

They were standing a good ten feet apart, Gavin’s usual distance between people. But Jeremy could tell from the distance that it was killing the both of them not to touch, not to hold, not to get closer and _finally_ hold one for just one moment.

It was then that Geoff and Michael walked onto the scene.

“See?” Michael said. “I told you they’d be here. Gavin always liked watching Ryan work out.”

“ _Hey!”_ Gavin said.

“Don’t deny it, Gavin,” Geoff said. “You were all over him when he came into town.”

“So were you!”

“Yeah, but at least I had the decency to not ogle in public.” Geoff stepped up to Ryan’s side, setting a hand on his shoulder and turning him to face him head on. “How are you holding up?”

Ryan shrugged, but he looked positive. “Better. Less tired now. But there’s a lot more going on.” He touched his fingers to his temple.

“Yeah,” Michael said. “The endermen got through the portal. They’re in the neighbourhood apparently.”

“You saw one?” Gavin asked.

“No. Jeremy told us. They’re handing out informational pamphlets in town.”

“So what’s the deal with this Jeremy guy anyway?” Ryan asked. “You guys speak rather highly of him.”

“He’s great at what he does and he’s helpful,” Geoff said. “Doesn’t snoop around. Doesn’t have his own agenda.”

“You say that now, but how long until he figures it all out? He’s a bright kid. He’s going to know.”

“We’ll address that when we get to it. All we need to do is focus on getting to the Aether and we’re set. Did Gavin fill you in on the Aether?”

Ryan nodded. “Geoff, are you sure—”

“Yes,” Geoff snapped. “It’s the only way.”

“If you say so.”

Geoff rubbed Ryan’s shoulder and slide his hand up to his neck, his cheek. “It’s the only way.”

“I know. How long do you think you have?”

“At the current rate things are going, not long.”

Jeremy had heard enough. It was time.

He rushed back to the fortress and ran to the wall where Geoff’s redstone torch hung. He plucked the redstone from the torch stick and ran off towards the storage area. He raced down the steps, the redstone his only means of light. He collided against the golem and fumbled for the hatch in the center of its chest. He pushed back the panel and set the redstone in the center. There was nothing he could see that would have to be attached to the redstone. It sat humbly on a small pedestal as Jeremy slid the panel shut and waited.

Streaks of redstone power coursed through the golem. Jeremy took two fumbling steps back as the golem creaked to life.

_Okay. Time for some answers._


	9. I'm Not Stubborn, Just a Bit Stupid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nearing the end here guys

When Jack opened his eyes, Jeremy expected him to say or do something. But for the first few moments that Jack was awake, he simply moved his eyes around the room, coming to his senses. Jeremy didn’t know how long he’d been out, but it took a while until Jack seemed fully conscious.

“Where am I?” he asked, in a low and rumbling voice.

“You’re in the ruins of the tower, in the basement storage. Ummm, my name is Jeremy?”

Jack fixed him with a look. “The tower?” he said, lifting his massive hands and inspecting them closely. Jeremy didn’t know it was possible, but some  emotion flitted across the golem’s face, a considerable feat considering he was made of iron. “Mother _dammit,_ Geoff.” And he began to storm off through the storage area towards the stairs. Jeremy was quick to follow.

“Umm, wait a minute. I think I need to explain some things to you?”

Jack didn’t stop.

Okay. Maybe this was a bad idea. He knew Geoff hadn’t wanted to wake up Jack for whatever reason. And now Jack was awake and storming off to look for Geoff. He seemed angry—if a being of iron could physically show anger. It was all in the way he walked, really. With purpose, the ground trembling beneath his feet.

“Hey, big guy,” Jeremy said, jogging to keep up with Jack’s ground eating strides. “Maybe . . . maybe we should talk about this? You know, take a moment to just breathe and figure things out.”

“I told.” Jack growled. “I _told_ Geoff I didn’t want to be woken up. I _told_ him.”

“Yeah, but he—”

“Don’t defend him,” Jack said harshly, turning on Jeremy to give him a proper picture, raised finger and all. “I know what he’s like. He makes you think you’re capable of doing these great things until you’re so obsessed with yourself that you forget about everyone else around you. I don’t know what Geoff told you, but you need to leave.” Jack turned away and continued his path up the stairs, taking the steps easily two at a time.

At a loss, Jeremy continued to follow him from a distance. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach about this. Maybe this was a bad idea. . . .

Jack tramped through the forest, following the enthusiastic voices of the others at the arena. Jeremy came to a stop at the arena entrance when he heard the shouting.

“ _I told you not to wake me up!”_

_“I didn’t!”_

_“Then why was there a kid there then? I_ told _you I didn’t want this anymore!”_

_“I didn’t—”_

Geoff broke off from the heated argument and turned to look at Jeremy, a look of betrayal softening his features. “Jeremy!”

“What?” Jeremy said, outraged and defensive. “I needed some fucking answers! And none of you were helping me. Either by not remembering a Mother damn thing or just plain _not telling me!_ I decided to go to the one person who would probably be at least truthful towards me! Sorry if I went behind your back on something. Not like you haven’t done that to me already.” He huffed and crossed his arms, trying to feel a bit bigger in the midst of these men.

It was the first time he’d felt alone in a long time. He was frustrated from the lack of information he was getting, especially since he was often getting injured on these excursions Geoff was taking him. He was finally listening to Trevor’s advice and taking a stand for himself.

“You need to tell me everything, right now, or I leave.” He hoped he was at least fierce looking. Confident. People had the tendency not to take him seriously. A lot of it had to do with his physique. He was often pushed around and made to follow instead of lead even when he knew he was in the right. But he was comfortable enough around Geoff and the others to take a stand. Hopefully they would see him as an equal and give him what he needed.

“I leave right now and I don’t come back,” he repeated.

Michael was the first to move. “Geoff,” he said, head turning to the side, slightly bowed, in a reasoning tone.

“No,” Geoff said, adopting a more defensive body posture—arms crossed, eyes cast to the ground.

“He’s going to leave if we don’t tell him,” Gavin said. “Just . . . Ryan, could you—” he gesticulated “—do your thing? I think it’d be easier.”

Ryan looked to Geoff first, silently asking for permission. But Geoff threw up his hands in frustration. “Fine. Do what you want.” He walked off in a huff.

When he was gone, the air cleared a bit. Jeremy walked hesitantly into the arena and approached the others.

Unlike the other times, there was no soft reunion with Jack now awake. Jeremy saw it in Michael and Ryan’s eyes that they wanted to go up to Jack. But the mood had been ruined with the disastrous meeting. Jack was obviously upset and hurt, deeply frustrated that he’d been woken up. Jeremy didn’t even know why Jack didn’t want to be here, but he had a few guesses as to why. The whole half-monster part probably had a lot to do with it.

“Well,” Gavin said. “Let’s get Jeremy up to speed then. Ryan, work your magic touch.”

Ryan nodded curtly. “All right. Jeremy, follow me.”

Jeremy followed Ryan into the centre of the arena where the sun was high above them both. Ryan sat down, crossed his legs, and beckoned Jeremy to do the same. They sat across from each other, knees almost touching. Ryan pulled off his makeshift eyepatch and extended his hands, palms up and flat.

“I’m going to pull you into my mind,” he said. “It’s a reverse of what I did to you earlier. My enderman ability will allow me to pull you into my memories so I can lead you around, show you what you need to know. The others will guide me to give you the information you need, so you might hear some disembodied voices while we’re down there, okay?”

Jeremy nodded. “What do I do?”

“Just set your hands over mine, and I’ll do all the work.”

Jeremy opened his hands and set them overtop of Ryan’s. Ryan curled his fingers around Jeremy’s wrists. When Jeremy looked up at him, the purple eye fixed him harshly. It seemed brighter than usual, more unearthly than before, and Jeremy suddenly found himself falling into it.

The scenery changed around him, muddling like ripples on a pond. The arena became a grand place, the stones covered in paint, the lawn neatly manicured. The trees beyond the edge of the wall disappeared, replaced by other buildings, only a hint of greenery, contained, showing in the background.

When it all settled, Jeremy stood up. The space he was in was familiar, but void, it felt, of life. No birds. No bugs. No wind in the trees. It was just a reconstruction, a memory.

Behind him Ryan stood up. “When I was in the End, before the mother dragon fell asleep, I’d construct places like this, fill it up with people and try to remember when things weren’t bad. But that’s how most psychic witches go mad. They’d build a fantasy and try and bring it into reality, but I’d always screw up the fantasy just enough so I would always know it’s just that. A fantasy.”

“Wait, you would live in here?”

“Mm,” he said in an affirmative tone. “Anything to pass the time. I was all alone in there. The endermen. They have memories, but because they’re a hive mind it’s really all the same, coming from the same source. Not much room for stimulating conversation.”

“All right, so now that we’re here, what do we do? What do you have to tell me?”

Ryan began to walk backwards away from him. “Follow me,” he said and turned around.

They walked out of the arena and into the city that had sprung up around them. This was the Achievement Citadel in its heyday, with finely built houses and buildings, paved roads, full of colour, of _life._ And in the center of it all was the tower, Geoff’s tower, in its glory.

It was _massive._ No picture or drawing could ever capture its sheer size. It was so high he was sure it disappeared into the low hanging clouds.

“ _Wow.”_

“Yeah. It sure is something. Especially when you can see it from _miles_ away. Jack and Geoff built most of this city together. Geoff was a great witch back in the day. When he had a vision of what he wanted to build, he would do anything to see it through. And Jack, well. Jack was a fire witch, but he wasn’t as destructive as most fire witches are. He was gentler, like a smoldering fire in a forge. And that’s what gave him his creative spirit. Geoff was the dreamer, but Jack made it _beautiful._ They worked so well together. Whatever Geoff wanted done, Jack would see it through, and so we have this city here. Built in a fortnight.”

Ryan led him through the streets, giving him a quick history of it, a fond look on his face as he spoke. Eventually, they came to the tower. Ryan pushed open the large double doors and led him inside. The first floor was rather sparse, used more as a greeting space for visitors than for any proper function. But up above them there was a high ceiling, suggesting that there were more floors above them. There were two grand spiral staircases on either side of the room and at the far end was the familiar fireplace Jeremy had slept in front for months. Banners draped the walls in vibrant colours, symbols of different cities, different cults and orders. Above the fireplace was the five pointed star. 

“After a few years, Geoff had pulled together those he thought had the _most_ potential,” Ryan said. “He chose Michael because he was tough, skilled with a blade, skilled in hunting and tracking. Gavin had the same abilities as Geoff in terms of magic, but Gavin was subtler. He was small scale, able to transform wood into rock, things like that. And Jack was there since the beginning. He and Geoff had always worked well together. And then Geoff pulled me into the mix because he thought I was _brilliant._ Not just mad.”

Ryan snapped his fingers and suddenly ghostly images appeared, taking form in the wholly human forms of the five men Jeremy had brought together. Michael in his leather and bear skins. Gavin laughing, perched on the edge of a table. Jack and his work roughened hands. Geoff lounging in his seat, clearly pleased with what he had brought together, and Ryan, at the edge of the gathering but clearly relaxed in their presence.

“He brought us together, and we became a council of the city. Here, the people brought their concerns, their issues, their dreams. We debated them and moved forward with them, bringing together funding and seeing things through. Sometimes we would go out and do things for ourselves. Hunt for things. Building things. And maybe destroy things. Together we were better. Together we were stronger. It just felt right to come together, like we were creating our own order. Soon, people began to know our names, our achievements.”

The scene around them changed. People of great importance came before them, kings and queens, great witches, great orderlies, cult leaders, order officials. Then a man dressed in black with long hair and a pointed face came forward. Dressed in a cloak made of black scales, he bowed respectfully before the five of them.

“Who’s that?” Jeremy asked.

“That is Mark,” Ryan said.

“Spectacular name.”

Ryan huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Anyway, he came to us one day with a request. There was something he was looking for and he needed our help. He was willing to sponsor us and our work if we helped him, so Geoff said yes.”

Jeremy watched as the man in black Mark pulled out a large tome, similar to the one Jeremy had stolen from the library.

“He gave us a gift to help sway us. A book that gave us every detail on the End, the endermen, Ender pearls. Everything.”

He saw them all lean forward to inspect the book. Geoff looked pleased, flipping through the pages.

“We had already been to the Nether many times before, but the End was new. There was only one entrance that naturally formed. It was the only way we could ever hope to get in. Mark made sure we had what we needed, gave us maps, new potions to aid us on our journey. Anything we could ask for. So we set off and went on this final grand adventure.”

Ryan slashed his hand through the memory and constructed a new one around them. They were at the End portal. They dropped out from it, carting out a heavy wooden crate that took all five of them to lift. Even then they had to be on some sort of Strength potion in order to haul that thing out.

“We went to the End and got what Mark wanted.”

The scene shifted. They were in a different place, a cold and cavernous room where Mark sat on a large stone chair. It didn’t seem like it had much of a comfort function.

Jeremy watched them as they opened the crate and revealed a large rough stone, black in colour with flecks of amethyst within it. He remembered then. The obelisk. The strange stone the tower of gold sat upon in the Altar. This was the same stone.

“What is that?”

Ryan shrugged. “We never found out. We thought that because it was in the End, it had some physic properties. Like it could be used as a conductor of sorts to create a greater sphere of influence. That’s all we knew about it. If I had the time to study it properly, I would have. But as soon as we returned, we gave it immediately to Mark and then we went home. Collected our reward and life went on. But then it all went to hell.”

Another violent slash of the hand returned them to citadel. This time the city was not a sight to behold, not something grand any longer. It was burning. An oddly purple flame lit up the tower and outline the shape of a ferocious dragon, the same dragon from the End, angry, terrifying, and yet _mournful._

When its flames lit the sky, Jeremy caught sight of other beasts in the air, more dragons laying waste to the citadel. And then there were the endermen, teleporting erratically, tearing apart buildings in a frenzy, their eerie screams haunting and mournful.

“We couldn’t _do_ anything,” Ryan said quietly. “And it wasn’t just here. All the dragons. It was like they were possessed. They were just laying waste to everything. Cities burning, people dying. And we didn’t know why. Not even the Mothers did. And then he came along.”

Ryan pointed upwards, and another large dragon came onto the scene. It was nearly twice the size of the dragon from the End. It was black as night. Red was its flame, burning hotly in its chest. It clung onto the side of the tower, ripping out chunks of stone and mortar. The smaller End dragon launched itself at the larger one and they slammed together in a spectacular shower of sparks and flame. It would’ve been beautiful if Jeremy hadn’t looked at Ryan’s mental projections. The people were terrified. The five of them stood together in the streets, skin coated in soot and sweat, watching as the great city they had built and loved fell apart.

The two dragons fought, slashing their claws at each other, teeth tearing into wings, tails slashing wildly. The larger one rammed into the End dragon and shoved it into the tower. The damage from the fire had already weakened the structure significantly. And now with a dragon sized hole in the middle of it, the building suddenly collapsed.

All that remained standing was the ruins Jeremy had stumbled upon all those months ago.

The dragons and the fire disappeared, and so, too, did the citadel. It was replaced with a brighter environment, a tribunal hall filled with many windows and the seven seats for the seven great Mothers. Each seat was taken up by a Mother, dressed in white with a pin on their cloaks signifying the area of magic they excelled in. And before them sat the five, seated before a table, all thoroughly humbled and exhausted.

“It took _weeks_ until the dragons stopped,” Ryan said. “The Mothers were forced to come together to put the End dragon back into the End. They dismantled the portal to prevent any endermen from getting out. The Mothers wanted answers. _We_ wanted answers. But after so much destruction, everyone just wanted someone to blame.”

Ryan let the memory play out before Jeremy unimpeded.

One of the Mothers was the first to speak. “This hearing is being held to determine if the Five Hunters of the Achievement Citadel had any doing to enable the attack on innocent citizens by the dragons that caused countless deaths and the destruction of several major cities. Once their part has been determined in this incident, they shall be punished accordingly. How do the defendants plead?”

Geoff shook his head. “This is un-fucking—”

“Witch Ramsey, please contain yourself.”

“You’re leading a _literal_ witch hunt right now,” he said. “We gave you everything we know since it’s happened. We told you _everything,_ and you still want to put us through this whole façade? To what? To make the people feel better? To make you feel like you’re in control again?”

“ _Yes,”_ a Mother responded curtly. “Answers are needed here, and the information you gave us is inconclusive.”

“How!”

“The man you mentioned. The one who sent you on your way to the End? He doesn’t exist. The stone, his household, everything. It’s never existed. We cannot find anyone who has met that man.”

Gavin spoke up next. “H-how is that possible? Why would you think we would lie about this?”

“Your history speaks of an inconsideration for the safety and wellbeing of others,” the fire Mother said. She drew out a thick ledger. “These are the personal accounts of those who have seen what you are able to do, and might I say I was _shocked_ when I had learned all that you had been up to. Several trips to the Nether, unsupervised.”

“The desecration of hallowed ground,” said the earth Mother.

“The destruction of several coastal towns when you had decided to disturb a nest of guardians in the Limony Sea,” said the water Mother.

“The point is,” said the necromancy Mother, rubbing her head wearily, “we have heard of you. All of you. And this latest scheme is just another on a long list of colossal mishaps. This isn’t the first time you’ve bothered dragons, is it?”

“No,” Geoff said. “But—”

“But it’s never enough for you, is it? Blazes, endermen, creepers, sirens, griffons—mad half-bull men.” This look was fixed on Ryan.

“And if we let you go this time, who’s to say something worse won’t happen?” the air Mother added softly. “You’re lucky we had the power to intervene. Next time . . . well. Next time not even the Mother would be able to save you.”

Geoff nodded, seemingly understanding. “Okay. I’m sorry. _We’re_ sorry for what we’ve done. We’ll do what we can to fix our mistakes. We’ll show you that—”

“Witch Ramsey, we know _all_ about who you are. You’re all selfish, self-indulgent people,” the psychic Mother said. “You are all reckless and dangerous to yourselves and others. Witch Jones, you willingly brought a tethered blaze into this plane of existence so you could fight it in order to win a bet. Witch Free, you desecrated _several_ hallowed spaces of the sprites, including one incident where you nailed a board to a thousand year old tree with the writing ’The Bang Tree’ on it.” Jeremy could see that Gavin was struggling to contain his laughter. Jack kicked him under the table.

The psychic Mother continued. “Witch Haywood, you have done things that not even a necromancy witch would consider doing. Your experiments defy the laws of nature and cause havoc wherever they go. Several times you have been witnessed standing aside and letting whatever unholy creature you created terrorize innocent people. After _all_ of this that you’ve done, you think we’ll just let you walk away from this?”

“We have already decided your punishment,” said the solar Mother. “For your _numerous_ crimes, we have decided to strip you of your magic. And to curse you into being the monsters you have become.”

“Wait,” Geoff said. “You can’t just . . . not all of us.” He shook his head. “If this is your decision, then please consider pardoning Jack. He had the least to do with this whole thing. Just, just let him go.”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “Jack shouldn’t even be here. He even tried talking us out of it.”

“Our assessment of Witch Pattillo has concluded that he was just as responsible as any of you.”

“But he wasn’t part of this,” Ryan said. “Not like the rest of us were. We were the ones who put everything in motion. Jack just followed us.”

“From our personal interview with Witch Pattillo,” said the lunar Mother, “we have determined that while he did try to sway you, he ultimately did nothing to stop you. And sometimes that’s just as bad as casting the spell to kill someone. And from our accounts on your misdeeds, it seems as if you sometimes enabled them.”

Jack shook his head. “This is all your fucking fault, Geoff,” he said bitterly. “If you had just _listened_ to me from the start—”

“We’ve heard enough,” said the lightning Mother. “Your sentencing shall be carried out within the week.”

The memory suddenly fizzled out, washed away by a sudden rain that Ryan had conjured up.

They were back in the tower then, up high somewhere with a view. Ryan had his back towards him. He walked out onto the balcony and braced himself over the railing. Jeremy went out to join him. From this high up they could see the entirety of the citadel, overcast by rain and gray clouds.

“We were so angry with each other at the end,” he said quietly, eyes scanning the terrain. “Each trying to blame each other for what was happening. Geoff took the brunt of it, of course he did. He was the one who brought us all together. And maybe the Mothers were right. Maybe we did deserve to be punished.”

Jeremy shook his head. “But a thousand years,” he said. “And even then, you’re still suffering, still in pain. When is it going to end?”

“Until we give up and let the curse take us. But you brought us back together, so that’s something.” His smile was wry, and there was a flash of pain across his face. The scene around them shattered and Jeremy found himself thrust back into his body, back into the arena. He jerked back from Ryan as if he was shocked. Ryan slumped to the ground, eyes dazed. The black veins in the side of his face were darker now. His neck was painted like a spider web.

Michael was there suddenly, stooping at Ryan’s side. “All right. Let’s get you up again.”

Jeremy stood up on shaky feet. He took a few steps away, trying to get his mind wrapped around what he’d been shown.

“Jeremy?” It was Gavin. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine. Just . . . overwhelmed. So you guys stole this _thing_ from the End, and pissed off the dragon there and it followed you here?”

Gavin nodded. “It was so angry that it influenced all the other dragons. They all went _mad._ All but one.”

“Which one?”

“You already met him.”

Jeremy thought back to the large black dragon in the Altar. “Crolden,” he said. “Crolden the Gold.”

“That’s him. He’s a mean old bastard. We think he’s some sort of necromantic dragon. Whenever he breathes, these skeleton creatures come to life.”

“The withers,” Jeremy said, remembering the black skeletons that came to attack them before they jumped into the End portal. “That was because of him. Do you think he’s still awake? I . . . heard some people talking in town that something woke up in the mountains.”

Gavin shrugged. “Could be. Can’t mean anything good, though.”

“Also, when we were at the Hoard, I saw something funny. Like the gold tower and everything? It was sitting on this strange rock. It was the rock that Ryan had showed me in his memories.”

“The same one,” Gaving said, frowning. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. I thought you were hired to steal that rock for someone else, another witch. Why does a dragon have it? Did Mark have a relationship with Crolden? Did they know each other?”

Gavin shrugged. “Why does it matter? It’s all fucked up beyond repair now.”

“Yeah, but the whole issue with the rock, I was just thinking that—”

_Snick. Fwoosh!_

Pain ruptured in his shoulder. He was pushed forward with the force of it. He collapsed onto his hands and knees, his left arm giving way.

Everything slowed down. Blood blossomed from his shoulder. His shirt had been lifted away by the tip of an arrow. He raised a trembling hand to the arrow, the tips of his fingers staining with red.

“ _Jeremy!”_

He twisted on the ground to see a black skeleton—a wither—standing at the entrance of the arena. It was notching a second arrow when Jack braced himself over Jeremy’s prone body, falling back on the iron golem instinct to protect other people. The black arrow bounced off his back harmlessly as Gavin chose to notch his own arrow and retaliate. The arrow struck a rib, but the wither hardly flinched. It notched a third arrow before it exploded into fire from a shot from Michael.

There was a moment where they could breathe just a little before another wither came through the smoke. And second and a third and fourth until they were outnumbered.

“We need to leave!” Michael shouted, lobbing another fireball to keep the withers occupied on him. “Get to the tower!”

“No!” Ryan shouted, struggling to stand. “The tower isn’t safe. Get to my bunker. We can wait it out there.”

“What about Geoff?”

“I’ll get him,” Gavin said, pulling up his cowl and hood. “Meet you guys there. Get Jeremy to safety.” Gavin tore off towards the arena wall, jumping up and planting his foot on the stone to give himself another boost so he could grab onto the edger before vaulting himself over.

Jeremy was picked up none too gently by Jack, crying out as his arm was jostled. He remembered very little of the escape out of the arena and the mad dash into the forest. They were following Ryan with Michael taking up the rear to keep the withers off their tail.

The forest grew darker around them, the trees dense and foreboding. Ryan led them further in before stopping, dropping to his knees and searching the ground in front of him. His fingers caught on an iron wrung. He pulled on it, and the door slid open to reveal a stairway lit by redstone torchlight. They all descended downwards, the door sliding closed at the flick of a switch.

At the bottom of the stairs was a large room, possibly used as a work space and a partial sleeping space. Ryan cleared the nearest table. Jack set Jeremy down upon it gently, and they went to work on removing the arrow and staunching the wound.

First, they broke the arrow. Then they removed the tip and wrapped the wound up in strips of cloth. They had nothing to clean it with, not until they could make it back to the tower. Until then they would have to wait.

Jeremy must’ve fallen asleep, or passed out from the pain or something. When he opened his eyes, the fire was cast in the warming glow of a fire, and he heard the voices of both Geoff and Gavin. They were all speaking in hushed tones, but he must’ve made a sound because they all stopped talking and turned to him.

“Jeremy?” Geoff said, softly. “How are you feeling?”

“Pain,” he mumbled. “All pain.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

“What’s happening now?” he asked. “What’s the plan?”

Geoff was silent. For the first time since Jeremy had met him, Geoff had no grand plan off the top of his head. Nothing wise or motivating to say. He looked more tired than usual, more _dead_ than usual. Maybe it was the curse finally taking hold him, finally removing any humanity still left in him.

“You need to get to the Aether right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“No. I get it. I do. Ryan showed me everything I need to know. It’s not fair what they did to you,” he insisted. “You’ve all been paying for your mistakes for _years._ It’s time you get a little break. Right?”

“You still want to help us?” Geoff asked. “After all that we’ve put you through? The lies and nearly killing you?”

“Hey, I’m not dead yet.”

Geoff smirked. “Seems like you’re one of us after all. Once we get to the tower and get you fixed up, we’ll look at the book again.”

“Yeah, yeah. But just so we’re clear, no more secrets.” He fixed Geoff with a look. “I mean it. If I’m one of you, I need all the details. I think I’ve more than proven myself to you guys now.”

Geoff nodded. “No more secrets.”

“Good.”

* * *

 

They planned on staying in the bunker that night. Jack was awake with Jeremy for the most of it, keeping watch on the stairs in case the wither found where they were.

“Hey,” Jeremy said, rolling his head to where Jack was standing silently. “I don’t think we had the chance of a proper introduction. I’m Jeremy. I do potions and have latent electricity.”

Jack offered him a small smile. “I’m Jack. Used to be fire witch with some solar inclinations, but now I’m an iron golem. I’d shake your hand but I’m afraid I’d break it.”

Jeremy laughed quietly. He waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. Sorry about waking you up and everything. I didn’t know you wanted to be left alone down there.”

“Don’t worry. I was expecting something like that to happen one day to be honest. Geoff would’ve gotten bored or something and come down to get me.”

“Why did you want to be left alone? I don’t mean to pry, but.” He shrugged. “I’m still trying to figure all you guys out.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. It was a long time ago. After many years of being abandoned and forgotten in a ruined city that had once been our home, I got tired of dealing with it all. Angry with Geoff for not listening to me when I told him not to go to the End, angry at him for getting me into this in the first place. Angry at myself for not _doing_ something more to stop us. So I told him, I wanted to go to sleep. And that I didn’t want to be woken up. Not until we were forgiven or if the world was going to end. And Geoff said he would do that, that it would be the one promise he could keep.”

“You’ve known him a long time?”

“Yeah. Since we were kids. It tears me up inside to see him like this. He doesn’t remember anything of our childhood. He’s losing bits and pieces of when we decided to build this city. And soon he’ll lose everything else. As much as I hate him, I also love him. Always have. And it kills me to see him like this.”

The silence settled between them. He was feeling the pressure now, the need to give these guys some sort of hope in the end. A happy ending where they could live in peace together. They didn’t deserve this. Yes, they’d been selfish, reckless. But they didn’t deserve _this._ This pain of losing themselves and being fully aware of what was at the end.

They deserved a better life than this, and Jeremy was determined to give it to them.


	10. Adding Fuel to the Fire Only Makes Me Angrier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao didn't mean to post 2 chapters in one go last week but whatevs
> 
> you guys deserve it for being so patient

They went back to the fortress the following morning, making sure to stick together in case more withers showed up. The walk was spent catching Jack up on what had happened since Jeremy washed up in the ruins. While he had very few questions, he made a few sounds that sounded slightly judgemental.

“So you _made_ him climb up there?” Jack asked. They were onto the story of how they’d gotten Ryan out of the End.

“We didn’t _make_ him do anything,” Michael said in protest. “Jeremy just climbed up there of his own free will.”

“Oh Mother above. He’s been with you guys for three months and you’ve already corrupted him.”

“That’s a bit of a stretch,” Gavin said. “He _willingly_ joined us. Key word: willingly. Couldn’t stop him from doing anything.”

“And I’m sure Geoff’s promises of knowledge beyond belief did nothing to convince him otherwise.”

Geoff looked up suddenly at the mention of his own name, eyes wide. “Hmmm? What did I do?”

“What’d you promise him?”

Wide eyed and innocent looking, Geoff appeared to have no idea what they were talking about. He shook his head minutely. “What? What are you talking about?”

Jeremy watched as their troop stopped walking. They all looked to Geoff with various concerned and worried faces.

“When Jeremy first got here,” Gavin said, trying to prompt him. “What did you say to him that made him stick around?”

Geoff looked to each of them. He had no idea what they were talking about it seemed. He didn’t _remember._ “What are you guys talking about?”

Jack was the first to react. He just shook his head sadly and smiled to soften the mood. “Nothing. Let’s get back. We have to fix up Jeremy’s shoulder.”

“Jeremy’s shoulder?” Geoff asked. “What happened?”

Now Jeremy knew Geoff had seen the injury last night. It was concerning that he didn’t remember. It seemed like he remembered most things that had occurred in the past few months. But there were a few things that had slipped away from him.

Which was concerning for all of them. Geoff was the idea man. He had set Jeremy off on this crazy adventure. He was going to bring them to a new place where they could finally be together. But if his mind was going, then they wouldn’t be together for very long.

They would have to hurry.

* * *

 

Back at the fortress, Jeremy guzzled down one of his healing potions. It wouldn’t be enough to heal the arrow wound entirely, but it was enough to forego any stitching. He set his arm in a sling and moved to open the portal grimoire and look at what it would take to get to them to the Aether.

Glowstone. And a bucket of water. That’s all it would take to make the portal. Simple, right?

Well. Here was the thing about glowstone. It was native to the Nether only. It was a brittle substance that often held pieces of gold. The issue with using glowstone to build a portal was that it took a lot of time to carefully carve out into a square block and set in place. Time they didn’t have. And Jeremy wasn’t feeling particularly patient.

So he figured he could synthesize it.

“So you want to create your own glowstone,” Ryan said.

Jeremy nodded and copied down some notes into his journal. He’d have to study the glowstone in the Nether to understand their properties enough to be able to replicate them.

“Do you have any idea of what you’re doing?”

Jeremy shook his head. “I generally don’t in life. It’s got me this far.”

Ryan looked pained. “This is—you don’t just jump into something without looking at it first. That’s not how field research works. You have to have a plan.”

“If I had a plan, I wouldn’t be here,” Jeremy said. “And I plan enough, just so you know. I’m not like a complete idiot.”

“Still. Trying to replicate glowtstone is pretty risky. I mean, you’d need to meticulously study the glowstone first before you even think about building something to replicate it. Rigorous testing!” He looked as if he would have an aneurysm at any moment.

“Ryan, I don’t have time for anything rigorous. We’re improvising.”

Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Ryan,” Jeremy said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We got this.”

“Do you always act this way?”

“What way?”

“This? Jittery and feverish?”

Jeremy shrugged and moved to check his supply of potions. “People have made comments. Now come on. I need to get to the Nether.”

* * *

 

In only a few hours, Jeremy had a rough plan set up to build the portal as quickly as possible.

Step one: return to the Nether to quickly study glowstone.

Step two: replicate???

Step three: throw a bucket of water on the portal

Step four: party it up in the Aether

It was as sure fire as it was going to get with the amount of tools they had and the amount of time. Every once in a while Jeremy would catch sight of the others, seeing that they were becoming a bit more monster each day. He talked to Jack before he left for the Nether with Ryan and Gavin.

“Golems aren’t monsters though,” he said as Jack stood silently at what used to be the front doors to the tower.

“That’s because I wasn’t as bad as the others,” he said. “They found me to be more . . . _innocent,_ so they made me a golem. It wasn’t a gradual process as it is with the others. It was total transformation. My punishment was to watch them turn into monsters and lose themselves. When they’re gone, it’s just going to be me. I’m the only one to remember them. And I couldn’t live that.”

“Well, if there’s going to be anything to fix this, it’s going to be in the Aether.”

“Jeremy,” Jack said before Jeremy turned away. “I appreciate what you’re doing for us, but I just want to sure that you know you don’t have to stick around forever. You keep yourself safe, okay?”

Jeremy nodded, although he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t understand what Jack was saying, but he said, “Sure thing, Jack.”

He picked up his satchel and moved on with Ryan and Gavin into the Nether. They had to be quick about this. Jeremy didn’t want to waste any more time. So they marched through the Nether in search of a deposit of glowstone. Ryan had said they had dealt with the property before, but never in a capacity such as this.

“We tried to build a portal to the Aether, I think,” Ryan said. “Never worked though.” He frowned as if trying to remember, but shrugged it off easily.

“And how did that go?”

“Not well? I mean, you’ll see how it goes when we get there.”

They found a mound of glowstone jutting from the ground. Ryan demonstrated to Jeremy how brittle it was by simply tapping a piece with the tip of his pickaxe. The glowstone shattered, leaving behind pieces of shell, golden dust, and gold nuggets.

Jeremy bent down in the mess and picked up one of the nuggets. It felt warm in his hand.

“What’s the plan here, Jeremy?” Ryan asked.

“Hold on. I’m thinking.”

Jeremy stretched out his good arm and picked up the brittle casing that formed the outer shell of the glowstone.

“Uh, guys?” Gavin said from his spot on the edge of the landing. “Not to rush you guys or anything, but we’ve got a ghast nearby, so if you don’t mind.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “Hang on.” He pressed the shell against the gold nugget and the shell piece began to glow as it had before Ryan broke it.

The nugget was a power source. He could harness it. He could replicate it.

“Guys!” Gavin said. “Ghast. Time to run. Now!”

“Hang on. Ryan, I need you to smash everything. Then pick up all the nuggets you can.”

In the meantime, Jeremy moved on to scooping up all the dust that he could into some jars. Once he had enough stuffed away into his satchel, they ran back to the portal and carried their finds up into the tower.

“Okay,” Jeremy said. “Step two. We’re going to put this nugget here in a glass box. The glass is going to be made with the dust that came from the glowstone. I’m hoping that once we shine a bit of light onto the whole thing will work, so. We need furnaces, we need to burn down this dust, and then we have to make the glass panes. Can we do that?”

“Jack is the builder here,” Michael said.

Jack nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

They worked late into the night, partially because Jeremy insisted. There was _something_ inside of him that drove him to work tirelessly like this. If he had to be honest, he would say he was feeling agitated. This wasn’t just his work ethic, the slightly feverish, going without sleep for days work ethic. This felt more like he was being watched at all times. His heart was racing. He couldn’t stand still. He just didn’t know what was causing this.

The next morning they continued, melting down the gold dust to turn into glass panes. Even with his metal hands, Jack was steady with the work, carefully lifting up the panes so he could fit them together in a glass box within which the gold nugget would be suspended in a configuration of glass panes. It included a lot of diagram work and sketches to figure out how to build the box, but once they had it, work moved quickly.

It was all moving so well until Trevor showed up, and Jeremy was painfully brought back to reality.

“Where have you been?!” Trevor asked the moment he touched down and transformed. He stumbled and fell from the rock he stood upon. The edges of his feather cloak were ragged and burnt. Trevor himself looked as if he’d rolled in a fire pit. Soot marked his cheeks. He stumbled again when he came up to Jeremy, and Jeremy moved to catch him.

“Whoa there, buddy,” he said, seating Trevor down on the ground and getting him something to drink.

“I’ve been calling out to you,” Trevor said, gripping Jeremy’s shirt as if he was afraid he would leave. “Didn’t you feel something? Anything?”

Ah. That would explain the agitation.

But Jeremy shook his head. “Not really.”

Trevor shook his head. “There’s . . .” He laughed more out of the stress than anything. “There’s a fucking dragon on the loose. And it’s just . . . it’s just burning everything. It burned the village, Jeremy. Everything. It’s just . . . _gone._ ”

Gone. Everything. His home. The potion stand. Everything that had made up his life until now. Just gone.

“And I thought that maybe you were there because we haven’t been speaking lately but.” Trevor shrugged and sniffed wetly. “I should’ve known you’d be here. You’re _always_ here.”

“Okay. I get that you don’t like what I’ve got going here, but you don’t need to get all snide with me.”

“And you don’t seem to understand what’s happening outside this fucking building! There’s a dragon burning villages. It’s got all the Mothers worried. Gus is asking after you, Mother only knows what for. And it’s all been going to shit like this since you stole that book. So yeah. Maybe I’m a little overbearing, but that’s because I actually fucking care for you, okay?” His dark eyes darted over Jeremy’s body and saw that his arm was in a sling. “What happened now? You’ve never been like this before, Jeremy. You need to slow down. Just come away with me. We need to leave.”

“No,” Jeremy said, taking a step back. “I’ve got something I need to do. Why can’t you understand that?”

“I do, but if it comes to the point where you’re starting to get hurt, it’s my business to tell you to back off!”

“Yeah, well, you’re wrong on this count! So just fuck off! I’m almost done!”

Jeremy’s chest was heaving. Trevor’s eyes were shining with tears and he had pulled back when Jeremy told him off.

They’d gotten into fights before, where one would storm off only to return later and they’d make up. But it had never been this bad before. And Jeremy didn’t know why. He was being driven to see this through, to see that Geoff and the others were brought to the Aether to where they would hopefully find a cure. He had to do it for them. He just had to.

“I’m just trying to help you, Jeremy,” Trevor said and he sounded so small.

“Yeah, well, you can help by leaving. I don’t need you.”

“What about the dragon? Everyone from the village?”

“Not my problem.” It really wasn’t. He had hardly felt to be a part of that small desert town anyway. Gus hardly paid him any attention. Everyone else thought he was a bit weird. He had never fit in anywhere, from the moment where he didn’t know if he was a witch to when he had started working for Gus, no one had ever fully accepted him—pulled him into a group or formed a relationship with him. Not until he met Geoff and the others. They saw brilliance in him. They saw something in him, and he wanted to keep basking in their attention for a while. Was that too much to ask for?

Trevor stood up, albeit unsteadily. He gave Jeremy one more sad look before fluttering off, a black feather drifting to the ground.

Jeremy was alone again.

“Hey, Jeremy,” Michael said, running into the fortress. “We need you.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy said, squaring up his shoulders. “I’ll be right out.”

* * *

 

The portal was finished two days later. The glass frame was delicate and pristine, shining from where they had built it in the arena. Out here they would have direct sunshine down upon them. Each gold nugget held within its glass prison shone brightly.

“It should work,” Jeremy said. “Hopefully.”

“And if not?” Gavin asked. “What’s plan b?”

“Plan B is mining the glowstone. Hopefully this works.”

He had a bucket of water sat by his legs. He was about to pick it up and hurl it at the portal when it came. The dragon.

It started with the sound of thunder on a clear day. Then the large shadow that blocked the sun.

Panicked due to the large dragon circling the skies, Jeremy dug out an Invisibility potion and threw it at the portal. It disappeared from sight the moment the potion bottle shattered. Whatever was to happen next, Jeremy didn’t want a potentially angry dragon seeing what they had set up here. He didn’t want to lose all their work.

They watched as the dragon settled itself on the side of the tower, pulling free loose stone as it fought for purchase. It pushed off suddenly and beat its wings before drifting over to the arena, landing hard on the stone walls. Jeremy felt himself being shoved back behind Jack. The others came to surround him loosely.

The dragon looked at them, its form more imposing and terrifying than Jeremy could imagine. Then it began to quake with laughter. Its form became like smoke before it began to sound more human. From the smoke emerged a man, a familiar man that Jeremy remembered seeing in Ryan’s memories. This was the man Mark, the man who had set them on the journey that had ruined them.

“Oh,” he said, “it is so good to see the band back together again.” He clapped his hands together and began strolling—no, strutting towards them. “How long has it been? A millennium? Give or take a few decades?”

“No thanks to you, asshole,” Michael said, preparing to charge forward if it wasn’t for Ryan’s hand on his shoulder.

“You mean, _you’re_ Crolden?” Gavin asked. “You’re the fucking dragon that ruined our tower?”

Mark grinned wickedly. “Surprise!” He laughed, a tone that set Jeremy on edge. “It’s amazing what you can unlock with your own mind once given the proper tools. And I guess I should thank you, even if it didn’t go exactly as planned.”

“What do you want, Mark?” Geoff asked.

Mark rolled his shoulders. “Since I woke up, I’ve been doing a little digging about that little witch you’ve adopted. You always had such a proclivity to pick up someone seemingly worthless. And then they turn out to be a major success.”

“Dude,” Michael said. “Back off.” His clothing was starting to smoke.

Emboldened, Mark continued to walk forward. “Your little witch has done some pretty impressive things. It seems he’s built and activated two portals. He must have some talent for you to keep him so close.” He tilted his head to the side to try and spot Jeremy from behind Jack.

Geoff stuck out an arm to stop Mark in his path. “You need to leave.”

“And are you going to make me?” Mark challenged. “What can you truly do to me now? After I’ve unlocked my full potential?”

Ryan scoffed. “And they called _me_ an abomination.”

Mark turned his attention to Ryan. “Figured it out did you, Haywood?”

“The black scale armour gave me a hunch, but now I know.” He flickered his eyes to the rest of them. “He merged himself with a dragon.”

“What do you mean merged himself?” Jeremy asked.

“If you play around enough with your magic, you can unlock certain abilities.”

“But Mark isn’t a witch,” Gavin said.

“He isn’t,” Ryan said and Mark was smiling brightly now as he put it all together. “But he’s a shifter. The dragon wasn’t his form, but he wanted to take it anyway. So he must’ve found a dragon to merge himself with.”

“How?”

“Whatever we brought back from the End. Whatever that rock was. It must’ve helped somehow, finished off the spell he was trying to complete.”

“And now I’ve awoken to finish my work,” Mark said. “And that little witch of yours is going to help me.”

“Go anywhere near him, and you’re fucked,” Michael said, shoving off Jack’s heavy hand.

Mark laughed. “You can’t keep him safe forever. You’re a ticking time bomb, Michael Jones. You and all your _friends_ here. How long before you lose yourself? How long before you forget who you truly are?”

Michael growled and was about to charge forward before Geoff landed the first hit squarely on Mark’s jaw. Mark stumbled back and wiped away the trickle of dark blood from his lip. “You can’t keep that witch safe forever, Ramsey. I ruined your life once, and I’ll do it again.”

“ _Fuck you!”_

Before Geoff could pounce on him, Mark’s body jerked and broke, contorting as he shifted back into the form of the dragon. The dragon before them chuckled before breathing into the ground, the thick air from its nostrils soaking into the grass until it began to crack beneath them with the skeletal hands of the withers.

Gavin notched an arrow and let it loose. Michael yelled and hurled himself forward, his skin flaming as he charged. Ryan teleported forth, grabbed the head of a wither and teleported away with it, leaving the rest of the skeleton to fall apart. Jack kept himself in front of Jeremy, raising an arm when Mark or Crolden or whatever opened his mouth, red hot with flame.

Just as he breathed his first flame, a witch ran out onto the field with a long wand drawn. He held it above his head and created a shield to prevent the dragon fire from burning them. He swirled his wand and the fire began to form a cyclone and then he directed it back towards the dragon and blasted it back. The dragon gave out a pitiful, painful wail and flew off into the sky, its hardened skin smoldering.

It was quick work to dismantle the wither that were there, and when the mysterious witch turned to face them, Jeremy felt his stomach sink.

The witch was Gus. And he looked mad. Creeping around his legs was his cat, which then shifted into a man with brown curly hair and a round face. The final member to arrive was a griffon, who contorted in the familiar fashion of a shifter into the woman Jeremy had briefly seen at the library. The blonde woman with the fur cloak on her shoulders, hair short and shaved on one side of her head.

“I _knew_ you were up to some bad shit,” Gus said, crossing his arms disapprovingly, staring Jeremy down. “As soon as they told me someone had stolen a portal grimoire, I thought ‘that better not be Jeremy.’ And then they told me what the thief looked like, and I can honestly say I’m not shocked.”

“Gus?” Gavin said, fingering the edge of his cowl. “What are you—how are you still alive?”

“I’m a Mother, you idiot. I was chosen as a successor. If I had known the position would come with longevity, I would’ve said no. But I’m here now still cleaning up after you guys. A thousand years later and I still don’t get paid for this shit.”

Jeremy closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Okay,” he said. “I’m sitting down now.” He sat down heavily on the ground and put his aching head in his hands. “What is . . I don’t under—”

“We’re friends of these men here,” the woman said. “I’m Griffon. And that’s Burnie, Gus’s familiar, but I’m sure you already know them.”

“And why are you here?”

“We’re here, because the previous Mothers had tasked us with keeping an eye on you guys. Good thing we decided to follow up on you. Otherwise you’d be nothing but a charred mess right now.”

“I don’t need you here, Griffon,” Geoff said.

“Wow,” Burnie, the familiar, said. “I’m surprised you even remember us. How long do you got left,  Geoff? Starting to forget the faces of the people you love yet?”

“Why are you here?” Geoff asked again.

“The only reason why you’re all together is if you had a witch helping you,” Gus said and pointed to Jeremy. “And now that Crolden is up, we have a potential catastrophe on our hands. You know what this means? I have to be the bad guy. Also, my favourite chair was destroyed in a fire. That’s all on you.”

“Well, I’m sorry if you can’t sit on your ass all day anymore, but I don’t remember you being there for us when it all went to hell!”

“That’s probably because you _can’t_ remember anymore!” Burnie yelled. “What did you expect us to do back then? The world was on fire!”

“You could’ve bloody well talked to them,” Gavin said, jumping into the heated argument. “Got them to not tear us apart like this. Do you have any idea what’s happening to us? To know we’re not even going to be human after this? It’s fucking inhumane!”

“And the world nearly ended!” Gus said. “Sorry if I couldn’t talk the Mothers down from their high horses when they were literally trying to keep the earth from tearing itself apart! You don’t think I don’t have to live with that guilt for the rest of my life? And now my fucking apprentice is in cahoots with you guys, and he doesn’t even know the real you!”

“He’s the only one trying to help us,” Michael said. “He’s been there for us while everyone else left!”

“A thousand years,” Ryan said softly. “And you don’t think we haven’t paid enough?”

“Look at what happened after you got back together,” Griffon said. “Four villages have burned already. Withers are attacking people in the wilderness. All within the span of a few weeks. And you don’t think you aren’t dangerous together?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be treated like this either,” Jack said.

“Okay,” Jeremy said, struggling to his feet. “I’ve heard enough.”

“Jeremy,” Gus said, as he brushed past to pick up the bucket of water.

He walked over to where the portal was, waiting for it to reappear.

“Jeremy,” Gus said again. “Trevor is concerned about you.”

“To put it mildly,” Burnie added.

“You need to leave with us.”

“You don’t know these men like we do,” Griffon said.

“It’s not like you know me,” Jeremy said.

The portal blinked back into existence once the potion had worn off. Jeremy picked up the bucket and tossed it at the portal.

The water did not splash down pitifully to the ground. It was caught in the finished frame of the portal, pooling upwards and outwards to fill the frame in a delicate pool of water. It was finished. The last journey they had yet to complete.

One by one the others stepped into the portal, sparing the odd trio no look back. Jeremy thought he should be more concerned by this, but he found he was just numb from it all. A deep numbness that stemmed from bone weary exhaustion. He felt as if he could sleep for days on end after this.

“Jeremy,” Gus said. “Don’t go. Whatever Geoff told you, he’s not telling you the truth.”

“How would you know? You left him here to rot.”

“It’s not like I wanted to. Just . . .” Gus shook his head. “Forget it. Forget it. I didn’t ask for this.” He threw up his hands and left.

Jeremy turned his back and jumped through the portal.


	11. Baby, You're Breaking My Heart

Once he was through the portal, Jeremy found himself among the clouds. And falling. Falling fast.

He screamed, but his voice was carried away by the wind. He was falling and he could do nothing about it.

He passed through clouds, skin numb from the cold. A patch of ground appeared beneath him, and it rushed towards him with a dizzying speed. Just as he thought he would end up being a crater on a random patch of grass, he came to a halt just inches from the ground. He gasped, breathing harshly as he was gently lowered to the ground, as if caught by an invisible hand.

He rolled onto his back, squinting up at the sun that hung perfectly in the center of the sky. He felt the grass beneath his hands and thought suddenly that the portal hadn’t worked. That he was still in the arena, maybe a few yards away, but still on the same plane of existence as before. So he stood and looked around, trying to figure out where he was, but he noticed immediately that something was not quite right about where he was.

Just off to the left was a rock. A floating rock. A large chunk of land suspended in the clouds, vines and roots spilling over the edge and its underside. And there were more up around him, some strung together by old stone walkways or creeping vines.

He turned in a slow circle where he stood, taking in the vibrantly green grass, the tropical coloured flowers, the way the air smelled sweeter here. It was paradise. Truly, it was the Garden of the Gods.

The Aether.

He did. He made it here.

He laughed allowed, to himself, overwhelmed with the feeling of joy and pride. It had worked. He did it. He was here.

He looked around for the others and saw that the long grass had been trampled, several paths leading off to a group of gnarled and weathered trees, grown old and left untouched from human hands. He followed the paths down the small hill to a babbling brook. The waters shimmered unnaturally, more so than it should from the sun above them. He moved closer to the edger of the stream and knelt down next to it. He dipped his hand into the water and felt an incredible surge of energy course across his skin. He then looked to his shoulder, still injured from the grievous arrow wound from the wither attack. He unravelled the bandage on his shoulder and splashed some of the water onto the wound. Instantly, the wound began to close. He splashed more water onto his skin and watch the ugly red wound fill in and shrink, leaving behind only pale, unblemished skin. Good as new.

No. Wait.

 _Better_ than new.

He felt _amazing!_

He decided he had a moment to collect a few bottles of the instant regenerative waters and moved on, following the trodden grass paths to the woods. He took in the sights and the terrain of the Aether greedily. For a group of floating islands, the Aether had a surprising amount of diversity in terms of physical terrain. There were mountaintops, the showings of caves—both natural and manmade—rivers pooling into small ponds, large and colourful birds, flowers taller than Jeremy, and that all shining sun that wasn’t too harsh on the eyes. Everything he came upon he wished he could stop and take a little sample of it back home. Who knew what untapped potion potential was here waiting for him. He could see why Geoff wanted to bring them here. If there was a cure for their curse, it would have to be here waiting for them to find it. Such a heavenly place could be filled with miracles and cures.

He passed through the small forest, hearing voices carried through the leaves to another small clearing at the foot of one of the manmade caves. “Hey, guys!” he said, breaking into a run to catch up to the group. “You won’t believe what I just discovered. The water here? It like has instant regenerative properties. I bet if we take some back I can look into brewing a potion that’s like a super healing potion, right? And then it should, I don’t know, reverse the damage the curse has done to you. It might not be a means to break the curse fully, but it could probably reverse the effects, maybe even bring you back to your former selves.”

He thought this new would bring them joy, but he saw no smiling faces, only looks of mild embarrassment and shame. None of them could meet his gaze. Only Geoff could and even then it was laced with a deep weariness that Jeremy had never seen in the man before.

“Jeremy,” he said, and he sounded _so so_ tired. Like he was ready to quit. And Jeremy didn’t blame him of anything. He, too, would be tired at this stage in the game, losing his mind, his body, his friends. He’d be ready to give up after centuries of mistreatment as well.

“What do you think?” Jeremy went on. “We can go back. Just a little more and then we head back. Or I can probably cook it up right here, considering we didn’t exactly leave your friends on good terms. Cook up a potion, a little celebration, and then we head back to defeat a dragon! We’ll be heroes! We can clear up your name!” Why weren’t any of them seeing what Jeremy was seeing? Why weren’t they at least a bit hopeful?

“Jeremy,” Geoff said again, this time firmer. “Look,” he said, and Jeremy’s stomach plummeted. He’d heard that word ‘look’ before in that exact same tone before. Bad news was coming to him.

“I appreciate what you’ve done for us,” Geoff said. “But the truth is—the truth is we’re done. This is as far as we go.”

“What—what do you mean? We have to get back. I know you have your differences with Gus and, and Griffon, but there’s still a dragon down there. I know you guys can fight. I just thought that maybe you wanted to be cured or something before we go back. We can’t just leave everyone down there to deal with a murderous dragon shifter. That’s unfair to them.”

“Unfair?” Geoff said, anger coating his words. “Was it _unfair_ to us that we were made this way? They can deal with their own shit. To be honest, this is all on them. They didn’t have to let it go this far with us, but they did. So the whole Mark-slash-Crolden stuff is their business. Not ours.”

Geoff had never spoken to Jeremy this way before. Never before with anger or hatred. He had always been fond of Jeremy before, but it was as if Jeremy was now a nuisance, something he had simply put up with until he got what he wanted.

“But didn’t you say that there was a cure here?” Jeremy asked. “I thought coming here was the solution.”

“It is, but not the reason you think. Aether portals are a one way ticket here. You get one use out of them before they break, means you can’t go back once you return without having to build a whole other portal. What? You didn’t think this was the first time I’ve been here did you? You don’t think I tried every conceivable way to cure myself? You don’t think you’re the first witch I got to help me? I tried _everything_ here. There is nothing we can do to get this curse to rub off on us. So I’m going to take what little time I have left and spend it with those closest to me.” Geoff smiled bitterly at Jeremy, taking on a softer stance now that he had said his part. “Look. You’ve been a great help. Really. You’ve given me more than anyone I’ve ever met. And you’re a _brilliant_ witch. But this is the end of the road for us.”

This ugly feeling reared up in Jeremy’s chest, causing frustrated tears to collect at the bottom of his lashes. “So you were just going to use me and keep me in the dark? Is that it?” He looked to the others, but they all remained impassive. Well, until the hot headed Michael spoke up.

“What did you expect? Everyone has been telling you to avoid us, but you refused to listen to them. We’re selfish fucking bastards, okay?”

“You _all_ knew? All of you were in on this?”

“Come on, Jeremy,” Gavin said in a lighter tone, but Jeremy shook his head.

“No. You _used_ me. And you all just decided that this dumb kid knows nothing. Just let him do all the work. Just let him put himself on the line, isolate himself from all his friends, and get what we need. And I should’ve fucking listened to them and just—” He didn’t know if he was going to cry or shout, but he was just _so mad_ that all he wanted to do was set himself on fire. At least then the physical pain would overcome the emotional one.

“You know what? Fuck all of you,” he said, laughing bitterly, refusing to give in and rub at his damp eyes. “Just fuck you. I’m done.”

He turned around and ran back into the woods, ignoring the calls to his name, running as fast as he could to find a way off this fucking floating rock for Mother’s sake.

But of course he wasn’t going to be left alone, not if these guys had anything to say about it. It was Ryan who came after him, teleporting to Jeremy’s position at the edge of the island, looking down through the clouds to what he thought was his plane of existence. Did he jump from here? Was that how he was supposed to get back home?

“Jeremy,” Ryan said softly, respectfully keeping his distance. “I know what we did was a . . . mistake.”

Jeremy laughed.

“But this is in no way reflects on how we feel about you. We really do like you. Really. You’ve been very kind to us. And you’re one of the most daring potion witches I’ve ever met. You do things that no other potions witch would think of doing. You see connections where they shouldn’t be. You have a gift, and you should continue pushing yourself to do more.”

“What is this?” Jeremy asked. “Some half assed apology?”

“It’s supposed to be a word of encouragement. You should look for opportunities in bigger cities. Anyone would be lucky to have you working for them?”

“Don’t you think I tried to get myself out there? Everyone just wrote me the fuck off because I was a work hazard. And you guys were the first ones to give me the chance and the space to let me prove to myself that I was fucking worth it. And you all were just big fucking assholes about it. You know what? I’m done here.”

Ryan nodded. “If you say so. Sorry about how things turned out.”

“Just fuck off okay, dude? I really don’t want to fucking hear it right now.”

“Well, if you want to leave, all you need to do is jump. You’ll pass through the Rift and end up in the nearest source of water to the portal. And, Jeremy?”

Jeremy jumped before Ryan could say anything more.

* * *

 

He fell back through the clouds, passing through the freezing, wet masses before coming out above the tower and the ruins of the Achievement Citadel. There was magic in his fall from falling through the Rift between the Aether and this realm, so he landed softly in the river rather than crashing down upon it. He kicked up through the water and breached the surface, swimming to the bank and lying down upon it.

_Time to repress everything._

He didn’t want to think about it, about any of it. Better to just lock it all up and get back to the real world. It was time he left this all behind. It had given him nothing but trouble. Trevor was right.

_He’s always right._

He should’ve left when he had the chance.

He laid there for—he didn’t even know how long. Long enough until he was chilled to the bone from his damp clothes, too lazy and heartbroken to move from his spot and leave this place behind. And that’s how Trevor found him later in the day. First standing up above him with a look of concern and frustration that melted into something warmer, something friendlier.

Trevor moved to start a fire, helping Jeremy up to his feet and to get him out of his damp clothes and huddle by the fire in a warm blanket. He didn’t say anything, letting Jeremy stew in his own misery until he felt like talking, which wasn’t until the moon was high in the sky and the fire was slowly dying.

“I thought that maybe they actually wanted me, you know?” he said, hugging his knees close to his chest, keeping his dry eyes trained on the flames in front of him. “Everyone always looked at me like I was trouble, like I wasn’t worth the time. But they looked at me like I was something special. Like I was something impressive. And I thought that maybe I’d have a place with them.”

“I know,” Trevor said. He had his shoulder pressed against Jeremy’s in solidarity. Of course Trevor knew. Trevor had always been there, through thick and thin. He was there if Jeremy received a rejection letter, whenever he was told off for being _too_ reckless. When he worried that he wouldn’t ever find his place in the world, resigned to Gus’s potion stand forever. Trevor was endless support and encouragement. He was the one guy Jeremy could always go to for help.

“And you told me,” Jeremy said. “You knew something was wrong, but I never listened to you.”

“To be fair,” Trevor said, putting a lighter spin on it, “you never _really_ listen to me to begin with so.”

Jeremy shoved him lightly. “I just wish I could go back and change all this. Maybe Gus’s potion stand wasn’t all that bad.”

“Don’t say that,” Trevor said. “You have to take risks to know when something isn’t right for you, or how do you expect to learn anything? While I am disappointed that you didn’t _consider_ my advice, you can still take away some good from this. I’ve never seen you happier than when you worked with these guys. They gave you drive again, and that’s not a bad thing.”

Jeremy sniffled. “I guess not. I just wish I could stop feeling this way. I thought they could let me be one of theirs, you know? Be part of their exclusive club. It made me feel wanted for once.”

“It’ll stop eventually.”

Jeremy nodded and said no more that night.

* * *

 

With his belongings gathered in his satchel, Jeremy and Trevor set out from the ruins for the very last time. The sun had just risen, a dark red on the horizon that only spoke of trouble. What was the saying again? Red in the morning, sailors take warning?

Yeah. That sounded right.

It would be a long walk back to any place that would take him. He couldn’t go home, not when it had been burned to cinders. And from what Trevor was telling him, there wouldn’t be any more places to run to, not with a murderous dragon on the loose.

“Gus told me to keep you away from the cities for now,” he said, walking beside Jeremy on the dusty road. “Crolden could still be looking for you right now. Whatever his plan is, he still wants to find you.”

“And what’s he doing right now?”

“Burning every village in his path.”

“Reasonable. For a dragon, I mean.” He sighed heavily. “I fucked it all up.”

“Hey. You don’t know that. You can’t know if Crolden was already going to wake up regardless of you stumbling upon him. It happened, and now we’re dealing with it, okay?”

Jeremy nodded, but still felt the guilt eat away at him. He wanted to do something to fix this. But how did you fight a dragon?

_Fight fire with fire, right?_

In that case, he need to find another dragon.

“Hey, Trev.”

“Yes?”

“Do you think you could find me an enderman?”

Trevor pulled to a stop. “Why?”

“’Cause there’s something I have to do.”

“And that is?”

Jeremy gave him one of his trademark smiles, the slightly crooked and overly confident one. “Just trust me. One last adventure, okay?”

Trevor shook his head. “You’re never going to change.”

“Nope.”

* * *

 

The enderman appeared before him suddenly without warning sometime after Trevor had flown off. It stood impressively before him, back straight, claws hands in lax positions against its sides— _hauntingly purple eyes fixing Jeremy to one spot as it seemed to call out to his soul._ A very benign being if Jeremy ever saw. Never blinking, the dark creature simply looked at him, featureless face making it hard to determine what it was thinking about—if a hive mind creature could actually think about something that is.

Despite the warnings he knew of endermen, Jeremy defiantly stared the creature dead in the eyes. “Take a look at my memories,” he said. “I think I know what you’re looking for.”

The enderman widened its eyes, and Jeremy saw his memories flash before him, too quick for him to discern anything specific, that is until it stopped upon the time he’d visited the Altar. There it was again. That strange black rock covered in amethysts that the Obelisk sat upon.

 _“He’s seen it,_ ” said a whispy voice, and he couldn’t tell if he’d actually heard it with his ears or if it was just in his own mind.

Endermen blinked in all around him, all whispering, all chattering with a tone that was slightly exuberant.

“ _He has found it.”_

_“Mother will be pleased.”_

_“The egg! It has been found!”_

_“Where?”_

_“You will help Mother retrieve it.”_

_“Mother will want to be here.”_

_“Free Mother!”_

_“Yes!”_

An enderman set its hand upon Jeremy’s shoulder, and they were gone, blinking to the base of the mountains, then up upon the paths, then at the Altar, down the steps to the End portal, and stop. Jeremy took a few wobbly steps to the side and threw up immediately.

“Never again,” he said. “I feel sick. Give me a minute.”

Once he had his bearings again, he jumped into the portal. The enderman followed him and took him to the dragon. When it saw him, it fixed him with a hard gaze, but then the endermen were chattering again, telling the dragon—Mother, he supposed—what they had seen through Jeremy’s mind. Mother perked up at the mention of the stone-egg thing.

“ _You will take me,_ ” Mother said through the voices of the dozens of endermen that had gathered around them.

“Take you how?”

_“Only the blood of a willing witch can ferry me between worlds.”_

“Okay, so I have a history of blindly following people at my own expense, so can I just strike a bargain before we go? Like, I have this other dragon that’s being a real pain in my ass, and I was wondering if you could help?”

Mother blinked languidly and bared her teeth. _“I will give you what you seek.”_

“That’s good enough for me.”

With a simple drop of blood, Mother roared and scampered off to the return portal. Jeremy ran to follow her.

“It’s in the Altar,” he said once they were on the other side. “Come on. Follow me.”

He raced up the steps with the fairly large Mother dragon squeezing her way through the tunnel up to the Altar and the Hoard. As soon as they passed by one of the great seats, Mother beat her mighty wings and flew off to the center of the Hoard, going straight for the obelisk and knocking it loose from where it sat upon the egg with a swipe of her mighty tail. She then curled herself around the egg, snuffling at it.

“Hey,” Jeremy said, stumbling his way down the piles of gold to where the dragon was. “Do you think maybe you could answer a few of my questions? Like, what happened? And that is an egg right?”

The endermen blinked into the Altar, speaking in their hushed tones for Mother.

_“They did not know what they were doing.”_

_“They took it without knowing what it was.”_

“You mean Geoff and all them right?”

_“He wanted it for a spell. To go where no one has ever been.”_

“Crolden? Go where?”

_“This is not the only world. If he had the power of the dragons under the influence of the egg, he could break this world and bring it into a new one, an alternate one.”_

_“But my power was greater still. Until the Psychic Mother forced us all to sleep.”_

“So they had no idea what they were starting then?”

_”No.”_

“Okay. I think that makes sense. And, um, what about my end of the deal? How do I stop Crolden?”

_“That is not what you seek.”_

“Um. Yeah? It is?”

Mother blinked at him knowingly. _“No, it isn’t. You seek a cure.”_

Jeremy shook his head. “I—”

_“The cure is your answer. You have what you need, and all it will take to complete it is a spark.”_

Mother shifted carefully around the egg, delicately taking it up in her mouth.

_“You have what I need. I have what I want.”_

_“You will win this if you truly_ want _it.”_

Mother prepared herself, shifting on the pile of gold and stretching her wings.

“Wait!” Jeremy said. “Can I borrow one of your buddies here? I’m a long way from home.”

Mother did not reply, but a solitary enderman remained behind once she had launched herself out of the Altar and up through an opening of the mouth of the dormant volcano.

Well. That was one mystery solved. Now he just needed to figure out what Mother meant. He had what he needed to make a cure. What cure? Was it _the_ cure? The one he had set out to make for Geoff and them? But he was done with them. He’d washed his hands of them.

_Come on. She’s a psychic dragon. She knows you better than you know you._

_Admit it. You still want to help them. Even after all the shit they put you through, you still want to help them after all they’ve been through._

_Yeah, they’re shitty people, but who isn’t? Does that mean they still need to pay for a crime they didn’t know they were committing?_

When Jeremy had known he was looking for a cure for a curse he didn’t know much about, his mind had always been running ideas of how he could fix this, create his own cure. What ingredients would be needed, how he’d need to prepare it, what the possible outcomes would be.

He thought back to Crolden, to Mark, the man who had merged himself with a dragon to take its shape. If Jeremy was searching for a cure to remove one form from another, then he would have a solution to both the dragon issue and the Geoff& Co issue.

“All right, buddy.” Jeremy looked up at the enderman next to him. “I need to get back to those ruins. Think you can give me a lift?”

The enderman didn’t look at him, but set its hand upon his shoulder and whisked him off, back to the place where this had all begun.

* * *

 

“And you’re sure this is the right thing to do?” Trevor asked, sat upon a crate with his legs crossed.

Jeremy puttered around, building a fire, setting a cauldron of water over top of it to boil. “I know it is. I just—two birds with one stone, right?”

“ _Boo._ I hate that saying. I always feel like I’m going to be crushed by a giant rock.”

“Besides. I know I need to do something about this. I know I can do it. I’m doing this for me. Not for anyone else. _For me._ ”

“Well, I’m glad you’re pulling yourself together, but we’re dealing with a _dragon_ here. It was hard stopping them the first time. What makes you think you’re going to stop this one?”

“Uh, because I’m me?”

“So humble.”

Jeremy upended his satchel onto a makeshift table and began to organize everything. “Okay. What do you see?”

Trevor propped his chin on his open palm. “A lot of vials?”

“Yes. A lot of vials with a lot of ingredients. We’ve got some leftover Nether warts, Heat potion, Invisibility potion, that’s drinking water, not to be confused with this one which is special Aether water. Umm. Glow stone dust. That’s just a rock. And some bits of paper. What does this have to do with anything?”

“That you’re developing pack rat tendencies?”

“Wrong! Mother said I had everything I needed to make what I need to make right here. Come on, Trev. Pitches.”

“Dude, you know I don’t do potions.”

“How? After all this time?”

“I’m here for your support. Not to burn my eyebrows off.”

“Fine. I’ll do it myself.”

The creative process included a lot of mumbling and a lot of reorganizing the objects on the table in front of him. He was mostly interested in the regenerative water from the Aether. That had captured his attention.

_I need something to wash away a curse. But what washes away magic that strong?_

Jeremy had learned in both school and in life that in order to counteract something, you need its exact opposite. Water versus fire. Life versus death. Light versus darkness. Everything had its counterpart in order to create balance. So if he had to wash away magic, he needed something non-magic, something that had the absence of magic.

But where was he going to—

_Oh._

Oh, that could work.

“Come on, Trev. We need to go see someone.”

“Do we have to take your creepy buddy over there?” He pointed to the enderman standing stock still against the wall.

“Convenient transport.”

* * *

 

He asked the enderman to take him to Matt. He didn’t know if the enderman could take him to a person versus a place, but one moment later he was standing in front of Matt’s forge. The sign said closed, but Jeremy knocked loudly.

“Matt! Are you home or no?”

Another loud round of knocking followed, ending only when Matt pulled open the door.

“Dude, what do you want?”

“I need your tears.”

Matt’s eyes rolled back before he closed them slowly, regaining his composure before he opened his eyes and said, “What did you say?”

“I need your tears.”

“Why?”

“For a spell. Presumably.”

“Presumably?”

“It’s my first time with this particular brand of potion.”

“Jeremy, listen. You’re my friend and all, but I’ve had a long day. Scratch that. A long week. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s a dragon on the loose.”

“That I am aware of. And you’ll be happy to know I’m working on a solution for it.”

“You. A solution for a dragon.”

“Yeah.”

Matt rested against the door. “And I assume the enderman guy was a part of your whole quest to find yourself?”

“He’s just along for the ride. So what do you say? You cry it out and I collect your tears like the good friend that I am?”

“Or I can just grab an onion.”

“That, too. And can I just say that you’re a great friend? You don’t ask any questions, you just go along with whatever.”

“Kind of have to roll with the punches if I’m friends with you. Just means you owe me _a lot._ ”

“Thanks, bud.”

* * *

 

No matter how you put it, there were always going to be large differences between witches and orderlies. Witches had magic ingrained into their very beings, their hair, their blood, their teeth. Everything. Everything could be used even after death in a potion. But with orderlies, their bodies were as plain and as normal as the rising and setting sun. Their non-magical lives often garnered pity, but orderlies were rarely ever envious of witches. They could still do things, impressive things, with their hands and their wits.

So with just a few drops of Matt’s onion induced tears, Jeremy returned to the fortress to begin his potion.

The non-magic would have to overpower the magic, making it so that the regenerative powers of the Aether water would strip away any magic it came into contact with. It would need a catalyst within it, something to charge the non-magic within. Some glowstone dust would work perfectly with that, so in no time at all Jeremy had a very small and limited potion in his hands, unsure of how to use it and if it’ll work.

“What do you think?” Trevor asked.

“I mean, it’s no Invisibility potion, but it’ll have to do.”

“What next?”

“We find a dragon,” he said, tucking away the small vial for safekeeping.

“And then what?”

“Make him drink it?”

“What? Like over a cup of tea and plate of biscuits?”

“Give me a little break here, Trevor. I’m functioning on three hours of sleep.”

“Well, if you give it to me, I could fly it up there and wing it at him.”

Jeremy shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, but this is something I need to do on my own.”

“You sure about that?”

He nodded. “I don’t know if we’ll make it through this.”

“Don’t worry about it. With you, anything’s going to be a grand adventure.”

“Thanks, pal.” He turned to the enderman and told it to take him to the dragon. Trevor transformed and hopped on his shoulder.

_With you til the end, pal._

* * *

 

The city of Nomina was burning, no longer in its prime of bustling merchants and apprentices. It was on fire as a mad dragon flew up above, belching fire onto the streets below, raging for Mother only knows what. The sky was dark, filled with smoke and thunderous clouds. Jeremy couldn’t tell if the rumbling was from the dragon or from the approaching storm.

Trevor buffeted his wings and cawed. _What’s the plan now_ he seemed to asking.

What had Mother said?

He had all that he needed. But all that it would take was a spark to complete it.

A spark. A spark from what? A fire? A piece of flint and steel?

_CRACK-A-THOOM!_

Lightning streaked across the sky, flashing ominously in the distance as the storm approached the burning city.

Lightning. Maybe that would do. All he’d need to do was to get up high enough so the lightning could interact with the potion to make it potent enough.

He scanned the city for the highest tower. It would take him to the library. The bell tower there was the highest point that he could see. He had the enderman take him there, but the path was treacherous. With armed witches casting off spells and hexes to protect the city and scare off the dragon, the enderman could only take him through a series of short teleportation bursts. And even then it would get lost, doubling back before they would be crushed by a collapsed building or burnt to a crisp when Crolden flew overhead.

They had finally made it to the top of the gates surrounding the library. Here they had a good view of the city and the bell tower up above. Thankfully, it had yet to be caught on fire.

“All right, buddy,” he said to the enderman. “One big jump and we’re there.”

Before the enderman could grab hold of him, they were buffeted by a strong gust of wind as Crolden flew overhead.

He had caught sight of them, and Jeremy remembered then that he was still looking for him, still looking for a bright potions witch to finish his spell. The dragon landed hard on the roof of the library, clinging onto the shingles and scampering its way down on the pitched roofs, closer and closer to where Jeremy was standing. The dragon opened its mouth, burning bright with the fire within, but a strong blast of fire to the side of its face caught its attention.

_“HEY, FUCK FACE! REMEMBER ME?!”_

A streak of fire sped towards the dragon and hit it squarely on the jaw. Crolden howled and swiped his tail in frustration. The fire hit again in the chest, forcing him to stumble and lose his position on the roof. He had to open his wings and take flight to prevent from falling.

The fire came to hover before Jeremy, melting away until it revealed Michael’s face and torso. He was so shocked to see him here that Jeremy was at a total loss for words.

“Before you say anything,” Michael said, “I get it. We screwed up. Big time. But hear me out. First thing—” Crolden flew past and smacked Michael out of the sky with his tail.

 _“Michae!”_ Down below on the street was Gavin, bow drawn with arrows aflame at the tip. He loosed it and it exploded as it came into contact with Crolden’s underside.

“I’m okay, Gav! Shoot him once for me!”

“Did you guys find Jeremy yet?” came another voice, deeper, softer. It was Jack.

“Yeah. He’s on the gates.”

“Jeremy, what are you doing up there?”

Jeremy looked over the edge of the walls and saw Geoff and the others down below. Geoff was shouting up at him through cupped hands.

“Being a badass hero, what does it look like!” he shouted, angered still at the sight of them, but feeling comforted by the notion that they had come back.

They came back for him it seemed.

Maybe they did care, deep down in their monster hearts, a small _human_ part was left. They came for him because they cared for him.

“You’re going to hurt yourself!” Gavin said. “You’re so tiny!”

“I’m working on it!”

“You don’t need to play the hero,” Jack said. “We’re in this together.”

“I know, but I’m doing this for me! It’s kind of hard to explain right now. I’ll see you when I see you!”

He had the enderman take him up to the bell tower while the path was clear. Once he was settled, Crolden roared loudly, and then the tower was engulfed in flame. The enderman took the brunt of it, wailing out in pain and teleporting away in a disjointed manner as its skin burned.

It was just him and Trevor then, huddling together as the bell tower burned. The potion was tucked away against his chest. He pulled it out, heart hammering in his chest.

_A spark. A spark. I need a spark._

He stood up, one hand cradling Trevor close, the other shielding his face from the flames. The storm was overhead of them, winds wiping up the flames in a frenzy. Lightning was there, but he needed a way to call it down to him.

He could feel the storm vibrating in his chest. The electrical charge in the air was calling to him, calling to his latent abilities with electricity. Electrical storms like this had always called to that small part in him, and then he had his answer.

The spark was in him. All he needed to do was call to it.

He stepped out onto the landing surrounding the bell tower, creeping around until he was out in the open.

“Don’t look down. Don’t look down.”

“Jeremy.”

The voice behind him startled him. He looked over his shoulder quickly. Ryan stood there, holding out his hand.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Potion stuff.”

“Is it worth risking your own life?”

He shrugged. “You tell me. This was originally meant for you guys, but I guess it took on its own meaning instead.”

“Then let me do it for you. Just come back over here. I’ll get you down.”

“Can’t, Ryan. You see, I’m the only one who can activate it.”

The hair stood up on his arms. He could feel the next lightning strike, and he pulled with all that he could on that small spark within him, that stubborn seed that would not yield or grow not matter how hard he’d tried.

Lightning streaked through the sky and arced down to the bell tower, called to the charge within Jeremy’s chest. He held the potion up, and when the lightning touched him, the glass vial shattered in his hand. The potion had been charged, and streaks of electricity lined the sky. The heavens opened up, and raindrops began to fall.

Jeremy suddenly felt drained. He let his arms drop. Trevor flew from his grasp, circling and cawing in deep concern. He heard Ryan yell out behind him, but his eyes rolled back in his head and his knees buckled, and then he fell.


	12. I'm Not Your Average Sleeping Beauty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for you support through this story!! it was a massive undertaking and i'm glad you enjoyed the mythos i infused into it.
> 
> not sure when i'll be back but i do have a longer GTA story planned next.
> 
> find me at staranon95.tumblr.com for updates!

_“How’s he doing?”_

_“Same as yesterday, Trevor. Still sleeping.”_

_“. . . do you think he’ll wake up?”_

_“. . . He should. It’s just a matter of time. That was a huge charge he sent off. His body is just adjusting to the new powers. Give him time.”_

_“Well. If you say so.”_

_“You should leave, Trevor. You’re not going to do him any good by sitting here and moping around.”_

_“. . . okay. Just. Let me know if anything changes?”_

_“Sure thing.”_

_“Bye, Gus.”_

* * *

 

_“You know, they say people in comas can still hear.”_

_“Gavin, don’t touch him.”_

_“What? He needs to know we’re here.”_

_“Doesn’t mean you can touch him like that.”_

_“Step away from him, Gavin.”_

_“So you’re sure the pardon was a full one?”_

_“Well, it’s not like we can do anything as we are. No magic.”_

_“So none of you have anything left over from the curse?”_

_“Nope. The rain washed it off. Everything’s back to normal.”_

_“To be honest, I miss the curse. But only for the good stuff. I could fly, you know.”_

_“We know, Michael. We all saw you.”_

_“Makes me think maybe we could build some gliders, you know? Climb to the top fo the mountain and just jump off and sail forever .What do you think?”_

_“. . . Seems feasible.”_

_“We should wait for Jeremy, though. It seems like something he’d like to do.”_

_“Mm.”_

* * *

 

_“You know, Jeremy, you seem like a real stand-up guy. No matter what you heard or saw . . . or believed, you always came through for us. And not many people would’ve. You put up with Geoff. You brought them all back to me. I was afraid I’d lose them. I mean, I already accepted the fact that I’d lose Geoff. Jack was already gone, so it was just him and me for a while. Until he started forgetting me, too. So thanks. You gave me my family back.”_

* * *

 

_“. . . So, this is a bit awkward for me. ’Cause, you know, you’re sleeping and I’m just . . . talking to you. Fuck. Anyway. You’re a great guy, you know? You take risks. I like that about you. You don’t care what the odds are. You just go out and do them because that’s what you want to do. So you know, stick around. We’d love for you to join us . . . whatever we are now.”_

* * *

 

_“You know how many times I’ve sat at someone’s bedside and wondered if they were going to pull through? You didn’t have to do any of that. Even after how we treated you. I should’ve told you as soon as I figured out Geoff was planning. But I’m not as good as I’d like to be. I was selfish, and I’m sorry we parted on such bitter terms. Thank you for doing what you did, though. You’re giving us another chance even though we don’t deserve it.”_

* * *

 

_“You know sometimes I forget where I am. It’s the short moments in the day when we’re eating or something and I have this sudden moment that I’m not dreaming any of this, that I’m not living in some construct I’ve got going in my mind. It’s weird waking up and seeing them as they are, not what I remembered them to be. You freed us from this terrible curse. I could feel it eating away at my mind, and now it’s all . . . gone. I can never repay you for giving us this sense of freedom again. But anything you need, anything you want, I’ll make sure you get it.”_

* * *

 

_“Hey there, kid. So. I guess I’m here to say I’m sorry. First thing. Now that I have my own mind back, I can see how terrible we—I mean, I treated you. I pushed you too hard because I knew you had potential in you. And I just had to exploit it because I saw the chance to have them back. And I’m so fucking sorry for that. I should’ve told you from the start, just been clean. I think you would’ve been more understanding than the others I’d dealt with, but I couldn’t take that risk. Not when we had Michael and Gavin back. I knew I could’ve had them all again. So I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did. You’re the most brilliant witch I’ve ever met. If I had met you back then, I would’ve taken you along with us. I think you would’ve liked what we did. What we could do. Not that that matters anymore, but . . . we could still do a lot of great things when you wake up. I still have a lot more to show you, if you’d let me.”_

* * *

 

Jeremy woke to find himself in a sparsely furnished room. He was lying on a small single bed with white cotton sheets. There was a window across from him, opened up to let the breeze in as it fluttered through the curtains. There was a wash basin stand against the wall. A night table was put next to the bed with a jug of water and a glass. He pushed himself up to down a full glass.

His back ached, and he wondered where he was for a moment, how long he’d been here, and what had happened. He stood up on shaky legs and moved to the window. He seemed to be in some sort of infirmary. The buildings where white with red accents, full of long corridors for patients to walk around and regain their strength. Further away from the building Jeremy was resting in was what he thought was an open air amphitheatre, and upon the sandy ground was a familiar shape. The dragon, pinned down, he thought, although he couldn’t tell from this distance. Every once in a while, it would wail, something painful that made Jeremy frown.

Footsteps at the door drew his attention away from the window, and he turned in time to see it open. Griffon walked in, startled at first to see Jeremy up, but her face lightened up when she saw him.

“Jeremy. You’re up. That’s good to see.”

“Yeah. What happened exactly? I don’t know how long I’ve been out.”

“Well,” she said, stepping in to take a seat on Jeremy’s now vacant bed. “I heard you had a potion that night. And you set it off at the top of the bell tower.”

“Sounds about right from what I remember.”

“Well, the potion worked. It stripped any magic in the city, washed it away. Crolden and Mark separated.”

He pointed to the window. “Is that the dragon there?”

Griffon stood and looked out the window. “Yes. We had the both of you moved to the Curative of Maltin. Here, the Brothers of Benefice will watch over the dragon.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s blind. We think that’s how Mark was able to merge their forms. It didn’t see him coming.”

“What are they going to do with it?”

“For now? Nothing. Just to keep it comfortable until they can figure out how to care for it properly.”

The dragon gave off another pitiful wail. He had the desire to go see it then, to show he meant no harm.

“What about Mark?”

“Disappeared. We’re looking for him now, but until then, he poses no immediate threat.”

“And . . .and the others? I know they came back. I saw them.”

Griffon tilted her head towards the door. “They’ve been waiting for you. Downstairs in the study. If you’d follow me.”

Jeremy followed Griffon out of his room. On their way down the stairs and through the halls, she continued to fill in the blanks of his time under. He’d been unconscious for two weeks. The potion had required a great spell to activate it, and the spell had sparked a change in him. It had fully awakened the latent electricity within him, bringing it to a new stage of growth. He was now a dual witch, one who had powers in two realms of magic. A rare occurrence, but it meant new opportunities had opened up to him. A new form of magic to practice.

Griffon escorted him to the library. Not as impressive as the one in Nomina, but it still had a wide range of books to look at. At one of the round tables sat _them._ The five of them, and it took a moment for Jeremy to realize that he was looking at the real them, hale and whole since the curse had washed off.

Gavin’s eyes were green, not creeper green, but green like leaves on the trees. His hair was a wild mess, but it suited him. Gave him a sense of freedom that hadn’t been there before. He was pressing shoulders against Michael, clearly soaking up the physical contact.

Michael was more or the same, but there was a lightness to his features now, anger washed away along with the spirit of a blaze.

Jack was smaller now, but still the same. He had smile lines at the corners of his eyes, and he wore glasses. His hair and beard were a soft red.

Ryan was more put together. Hair cut, face cleaned, he wore newly tailored clothes that hugged his broad shoulders and tapered waist.

And then there was Geoff. He had shaved his beard down to sport some ridiculous moustache, and there was light in his eyes again. His skin was no longer that pallid green of rot but rosy, full of life.

They all looked good, no longer haunted by the past. They stood up when they saw Jeremy enter the library, coming up to greet him but not going so far as to shake his hand or hug him or anything. They looked ashamed somewhat.

“Jeremy,” Geoff said, always the leader, speaking for them all. “I just wanted to say . . . we’re sorry. Me most of all because I should’ve been truthful. From the start. I just didn’t want to scare you off, not when you were willing to help.”

“Why did you come back?” Jeremy asked, crossing his arms because he wasn’t ready just yet to welcome them back into his life. Not yet.

“Because Geoff had the memory of a goldfish,” Gavin replied with a slight smirk.

“Seriously,” Michael said. “He got freaked out about you not being here, so we had to go after you.”

“And then we realized what was more important,” Ryan said. “We didn’t know how much time we had left, but we decided to go after you instead.”

“What you were doing,” Jack said, “was so selfless. And reckless. We couldn’t let you do it by yourself, not when we had created this whole mess to begin with.”

“Selfless and reckless. Our new motto,” Geoff declared. “So what do you say, Jeremy? Do you forgive us?”

“I’m not one to hold a grudge,” Jeremy said. “Doesn’t mean I won’t try to exact a _little_ revenge on you.”

At that Geoff laughed. “What did I tell you about this kid? If you had been born a millennia earlier, I bet we would’ve been great friends.”

Jeremy fell into the fold, welcomed with pats on the back and stern hugs, laughing as he was enveloped by the group, the legendary people who once had the power to shape the world.

He sat down at the table with them, enjoying the way they all seemed relaxed now that the clock wasn’t ticking against them. “So what’s next for you guys?” he asked.

Gavin threw up his hands. “Who knows? We’re magicless now.”

“We could always hop on a boat and head east,” Ryan said. “That’s where most of the orderlies go these days.”

There were some mild motions of agreement, but Jeremy had a better idea.

“We could,” he said. “Or we could go see the dragon over yonder.”

 _“Yonder,”_ Michael snorted.

“And do what exactly?” Geoff asked with a keen glint in his eye.

Jeremy shrugged. “You tell me.”

“Well, boys,” he said, looking at the others around the table. “I think it’s time we start a new chapter.”

* * *

 

The dragon had been a sight to see. Restrained in the amphitheatre to protect itself and the witches who watched over it, the dragon had snuffed them out. Jeremy had been able to see what Griffon met. There had been deep scratches over the dragon’s eyes, which had been left white and milky. It hadn’t been as menacing as Jeremy had thought dragons would be. Instead it had showed curiosity, growling softly when they’d approached, setting their hands down upon its thick skin. It hadn’t been harmed physically during the night Jeremy had freed it.

It had turned its blind eyes towards Jeremy when he’d touched it, and Jeremy had felt something pass between them.  Something deep and powerful.

The dragon had been loosed a week later, taking to the skies and disappearing from sight. Where it would go, no one could tell, but it had been a sight to behold. Something large and so powerful. Jeremy ad felt truly small for a moment until the dragon had flown far off.

After much discussion, they had decided to leave this part of the country and see what else was out there for them. The boat was waiting to take them away and carry them to the east. Gus had arrived to see them off with Burnie standing behind him.

“I’d say I’m sorry to see you go,” Gus said. “But sorry implies that I care and you guys fucked up my house, so.”

“Thanks, Gus,” Jeremy said. “Really appreciate it. I’ll send a postcard.”

“Get out of here.”

Jeremy turned and walked up the gang plank onto the boat. Trevor was already settling in, stretched out on the edge of the boat. Jeremy hopped up next to him.

“You ready?” Trevor asked, eyes closed, face turned to the sun.

He nodded. “I think I’ve been ready for this for a long time.”

“ _Told you we wouldn’t be late.”_

Jeremy turned and looked to see that the others had finally joined him, rushing up the gang plank with their bags and their satchels.

“Sorry about that, lil J,” Gavin said. “Michael got us lost.”

“Why did you put me in charge of getting us here then?” Michael said. “You know I can’t read a damn map.”

“So where are we headed?” Ryan asked. “I never did catch the name.”

“A small town called Whinchito. I figured we could hit that and go north. See what’s up there.” Jeremy pulled out his map and gave it to Ryan to look at.

“Never been east before,” Jack said. “Heard they have these great inventions. The trains, lightbulbs, these newfangled gliders.”

 “Whatever, man,” Geoff said. “We can literally do whatever. Doesn’t care if it’s just building a house or learning how to farm. It’s all whatever. And I couldn’t care less.”

“I never pegged you to be a farmer, Geoff,” Jeremy said.

“Yeah, ’cause he’d be a shit farmer,” Gavin said. “Can’t grow a damn thing. You’d think he could, earth witch and all, but he’s shite at it.”

“Managed to kill a cactus once,” Ryan said offhandedly. “By overwatering it.”

“I’m gifted in other ways.”

_“All aboard! Drop the main sail!”_

Trevor nudged Jeremy with his foot. “You ready?”

“Dude, I was born ready.”

The sails captured the breeze, and the boat was turned towards open water.

 _“Don’t come back!”_ Gus shouted.

 _“We won’t!”_ Jeremy said, waving goodbye to the both of them.

He swivelled on the edge of the boat and turned to watch the city disappear. This land, this country had held much for him at one point. But it also held too much pain for all of them. This land held scars. It was too fragile for the likes of them. It wouldn’t last much longer. It needed to heal same as them. A new chapter in a new book. The crumbling tower of the citadel would continue to weaken under the growth of ivy, and one day it would be unrecognizable. The mark of the five would be lost time, and so it should be.

He looked to them and no longer saw powerful witches, bent on pushing themselves to their limits, but simply _men._ Men who were relaxed and enjoying life for the first time in their lives, taking it in with quiet admiration. This was who he wanted to be with now. People grounded in reality, at peace with who they were now. They had much to learn and so did he, but they had what it took to stay together, and that’s all that mattered.

As the boat carried them out onto the endless expanse of the open ocean, the sound of distant thunder filled the cloudless, blue sky. Jeremy turned his gaze towards the sun, squinting as a shadow passed overhead. It seemed as if the dragon had the same idea as them, leaving behind a world that no longer existed.

And for once Jeremy no longer felt a restlessness inside his chest that he could not sate. For a brief moment, he knew peace, and that’s all he would need.


End file.
